


The Life that Never Lived ? (Philosopher's Stone)

by bookhater95



Series: The Life that Never Lived [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Reading the Books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-11-19 13:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 120,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18136403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhater95/pseuds/bookhater95
Summary: Harry is lost back in time with four people he felt he really should remember...with no memory and only seven books to find out the truth of his life, before it's too late to save his new family. A reading the book series with no actual book usage, for a copy that does contain parts of the book easier to follow along, shoot me your email address and I'll send it along.





	1. THE BOY WHO LIVED

So, let us try this, again!

As you were all made well aware, my Life That Never Lived fic got taken down for a fourth time! I cried, I screamed, I deny having gotten away with a murder, and may have possibly spent some time pretending I was a cat to not be in this world for a time, but I never for a second considered quitting! It is not going to happen! I will have all seven books done if it is the end of me! At this rate it feels like it will be.

The republication of this though, is honestly in a very large part thanks to you all! You honestly have no idea how much it means to me, through every single trial that so many people still pushed, pleaded, threatened, begged, and insisted I keep going! I may have anyways but never bothered publishing the rest out of sheer agitation, but every single one of you never left any doubt you wouldn't stand for that, you wanted to see this happen, and this is me granting your wish!

Yet onto the actual point of being in here. Below you will find as legitimate a copy of this type of fic that is possible to be. Not a single trace of the book is found anymore than any other fanfiction on this website! Now the reason I stalled on doing this method for so long, even though I ran the risk from before with my old style, is I don't like this method. I like the line by line commentary, and this leaves a lot to be desired for me! I'm whining though, because it's not how I want it to be, but take heart I still have a better version up on Wattpad. To see how I much prefer this being done, with far more commentary than this style could offer, look to that, but I'll finish on this website if it's the last thing I do!

As I promised, if this style seems at all familiar it may be because you've read Under a Watchful Eye by mysecretthoughts. He/ She too uses this style for her/ his reading the stories fic and I pulled this idea from there.

* * *

"Come on Lils, you think that fly on the wall is going to be the death of him. Let me give him one more go," Sirius tried again for the fifth time that hour.

"I said no Sirius," Lily snapped back. "He's only four months old; he can't even hang on by himself yet. You need both hands to steer that monstrosity."

"But I can-" Sirius began again but was interrupted by the man on the couch.

"Oh, just let it go Padfoot. There's no point in arguing with Lily when she's in a logical mood." Remus paused for breath and glanced up to grin at the two. "Try it again later when Harry won't go to bed."

Sirius grinned. Lily shot the man an evil look for giving Sirius false hopes; when suddenly there was a crash in the kitchen.

Faster than many could follow, Remus and Sirius had pushed Lily and the baby in her arms towards the stairs, drawn their wands, and advanced on the noise. Entering the kitchen they saw something that would turn their world upside down.

A young man was strewn across the Potters' kitchen table, which had snapped in half underneath him. The only reason he was not a slug on the floor for going into this house was that he looked oddly familiar... but this was impossible. James Potter was upstairs, probably trying to calm down his disturbed wife, considering he'd been upstairs in the middle of one of his drawings, they imagined that bit of parchment wasn't going to hold his attention long after this. Sirius was half surprised he wasn't down here himself by now. This had to be true, for no matter how much he looked it, this man was not James. They had a lot of the same face, and the boy even had his black hair, but there was something slightly off.

The man on the table stirred, groaning slightly and grabbing his head as if in monumental pain. The thought that someone had tried to use a Polyjuice potion to look like James was driven out of both men's mind as the eyelids slowly parted, and they saw a pair of bright green eyes behind those glasses. Remus had been too stunned to do much of anything but stare at the strange sight before him, but now that he was seeing life in the stranger he managed to gather his wits about him. "Alright you, whoever you are, you are to get to your feet slowly. No sudden moves or I will make sure that arm of yours never moves again." He demanded in a stern voice.

The familiar eyes slid over to the side to land on the two, and he frowned as he caught sight of them. Then his face grimaced. He clutched his head, his nose scrunching up like Lily's did when she got a migraine. Sirius and Remus exchanged wary looks, wondering if this was some kind of trick, but as soon as it had started, the boy relaxed again. Once his face calmed a bit his eyes reopened. With words slurring slightly he stated, "Alright." He raised both arms above his head, then brought them back down to his side to help lift him up.

Both men felt another spasm of shock as they realized just how close in height this person was to their best friend. Turning a funny green color the man managed to right himself, giving both guys one more confused stare, then pass out again on the kitchen floor as soon as James Potter came skidding into the room.

"What the hell?!" James yelped in shock, seeing his doppelganger on the floor.

Sirius turned to him sharply and said, "James, do you have any idea what's going on?" His friend merely shook his head in shock, still staring down at the body on the floor.

"Well," Remus started cautiously while shifting his weight around. "What do we do now?"

"Obvious ain't it?" Sirius grunted. "Call some Aurors and have him carted out of our hair."

"Is that all you think about?" Remus asked with a small grin. "Your hair?"

"Well, it is marvelous," he grinned, pushing it out of his face so they could see his full grin.

James, on the other hand, surprised his two friends by saying, "No, not yet."

They both turned to him sharply as Remus snapped, "James, you can't be serious?" he quickly cut himself off by stating, "Don't even start," to Sirius before hurrying on. "A strange person just apparated into your kitchen and you want to leave him there?"

"Well," James started slowly but gained confidence as he continued. "It's just; he seems rather harmless right now doesn't he? We should at least give him the chance to explain." Remus and Sirius both exchanged concerned and even alarmed looks.

"That's it, who are you and what have you done with James Potter?" Sirius finally spat, only half joking in light of the current situation.

James grinned and looked about ready to make a sarcastic comment until Remus seconded, "The James I know would ever leave a stranger in the house with his wife and son."

James slumped his shoulders as he reconsidered, but then his eyes landed again on the youth on the floor. He straightened back up and looked his friends square in the eyes. "Look you two, don't tell me you're the ones that need glasses now? Can't you see the resemblance between this young man and myself?" The other two had to agree with this.

"Well, I suppose-" Remus began slowly but was cut off by yet another harsh light appearing. All three men yelped in shock as eight objects slammed down, exactly where the other person had been. The wands had never been put away but had remained pointed at the stranger. Now they were raised instead at seven books, and a note. Cautiously Remus and Sirius walked forward, and while Sirius bent down to examine the books Remus read aloud;

'Harry,

We're all so worried about you. That potion has never been tested before, and we're still trying to put together the pieces of what happened to you. We've full confidence that you're safe, but keep your head down, as we both know that Death Eater's a known killer.

I've sent these books in hopes it will help jog your memories. It is still too dangerous to send another person after you. We might suffer the same effects. The rest of use will follow, as soon as I can find out how. '

"That's it," Remus finished.

"These books are a bit odd too," Sirius said, flipping through the books. "They're just numbered first, second, etcetera." He held up the skinniest book in the lot and showed it to James, who could only agree.

"This is so weird," Remus muttered, his eyes flickering back and forth between the man on the floor, his best friend across from him, the ceiling where his little cub was with his mother, and back towards the books. Sirius was merely looking down at the still asleep body, kind of bemused now. "So, what do you guys make of it?"

James sucked in a deep lungful of air before deciding. "Alright, nothing's concrete yet. I say we tie up this chap, and make him comfy on the sofa until further notice. Bring Lily and Harry down here; I don't want them out of my sight until I'm more comfortable about this. We'll read the first chapter to try and decide how legitimate this is. After that we'll wake the kid up and get some confirmation."

"And what about this Death Eater?" Remus asked, perusing the letter again. "Apparently this one here's not our only visitor."

James and Sirius hesitated, both sharing dark looks before Sirius said, "That just backs up what James said all the more."

"Waking him up might not help much," Remus pointed out, still staring at the letter. "These books are apparently here because he has no memory. This note seemed to have been written very hastily, look at how some of the words mash together. If it was any smaller I wouldn't be able to read it at all."

Sirius huffed, realizing both Remus and James were on opposite sides here, and he was the deciding factor. After thinking it all through he said, "I'm with James. If these books and this kid really are about our little Harry upstairs, the books should confirm it one way or another. Let's work through the first chapter until we come up with a better idea anyway."

Outvoted, Remus nodded and flicked his wand. Ropes spun around the stranger's hands and feet for good measure. James went upstairs to fetch his child. Sirius gathered the books and set them on the coffee table.

Once Lily had come down with her baby in her arms, her eyes went straight to James' duplicate on the couch. He had already explained the situation to her, and she agreed this was nothing to be hasty about. Remus almost wished she had disagreed, he still didn't feel too sure about this, but knew if she'd had another opinion she well would have spoken it to the lot of them.

Leaving the older unconfirmed Harry to the couch, Lily and James took up the love seat with their baby in Lily's arms. Remus took the recliner, and Sirius sat down on the hearth rug in front of the fire.

Remus had managed to take the book away from Sirius during all this, so it was he who opened it to the first page and read out the iconic first line of the series.*

Lily's face brightened with joy at those words, and as she clutched her son to her chest she cooed, "Oh, these books are about my little Hare Bear!"

"How on earth could you know that from the first sentence?" Remus demanded.

"My sister, Petunia, married a man named Vernon," she replied, a bit of a catch in her voice, the sting of not even being invited to that wedding still smarting a bit.

"Good to know about your horrid sister's life," Sirius said sarcastically. "But what does this have to do with Harry?"

Lily mulled that over for a moment before announcing, "Maybe I finally make up with her. Maybe we finally get to push all that water under the bridge."

"I doubt that," James muttered so low his wife couldn't hear him, rethinking the first sentence. He did not, however, repeat himself louder because he did not want to hurt his wife's chances of this being true.

As he stated the job of Uncle Vernon, James cut in to ask curiously, "What are drills?"

"They make holes in the ground," Lily said quickly before waving Remus on.

"She hasn't changed much," Lily said with a small smile, when she heard of her sister, now a Mrs., who spent much of her time spying on neighbors. "Always been a bit nosy."

When Lily heard that this couple too had a son who was named Dudley, she pursed her lips, wondering when exactly this took place, as she had no idea whatsoever that her sister was even pregnant; they hadn't even spoken in several years.

When she heard that the Dursleys wouldn't even be able to stomach it if anyone heard of their attachment to her new last name, for the first time, Lily started having doubts as well, but she quickly shook it off. "Perhaps they just don't want the other muggles finding out about the wizarding world. They're trying to protect us."

James still wasn't sure he agreed, as he knew it wasn't Moony putting such bitter little tones in all of this, but then again, he had no real idea what was even going on yet, so he still said nothing to put her hopes against this.

As Lily was told about Mrs. Dursleys' feeling for her sister though and how they still hadn't spoken in years and how they considered themselves of the opposite, Undursleyish, she flinched and looked down instead. There went that dream.

In hopes of cheering her up Sirius piped up, "so if they get to make those kinds of words up, can I make everything cool as Siriusly as possible?"

James groaned and Remus pointed out, "Sirius, seriously is already a word. Just because you substitute your name doesn't change that."

"Rats," he muttered, snapping his fingers, and then looking around as if noticing something for the first time. "Hey guys, where did Peter run off to?"

"Oh, he left a few minutes ago," Lily said, pleased for the momentary change of subject. "Said he had to run some errands. He'll be back later."

"Why didn't he ask any of us to go with him?" James asked.

Lily rolled her eyes and stated, "He wouldn't," while pointing at Sirius, "you couldn't," she told her husband, "and I was busy with Harry. Though I don't know why he didn't ask you," she finished, turning her wide green eyes on Remus. Remus shrugged and as he had no idea, just went back to reading.

At the point she learned the Dursleys would be horrified if her and her husband showed up for any reason regarding the fact they both had a son of the same age, Lily again pursed her lips, this time in a bit of annoyance. Yes, she had written to her sister to tell her she was an aunt now. When she hadn't gotten a reply she had tried to brush it off. Now she had learned that her sister had a boy at about the same time, and this hurt more than anything.

This feeling only continued to grow when she heard that, contrary to her, Petunia, had no desire whatsoever to meet her own nephew, but instead wanted to keep her farther away as her sister wanted to now keep her nephew away. Lily's feelings had sunk even lower with every word because clearly Petunia's attitude for her had only gotten worse. The other three boys in the room however looked outraged that anyone could think such a thing about a kid like Harry.

"Well that's ominous," Sirius chuckled when the book finally seemed to really get itself started in saying what the day was and how ordinary it seemed.

Remus kept going by telling how Mr. Dursley picked out his most boring tie and tried to give his child a kiss goodbye, hampered by the fact Dudley was throwing his breakfast at the wall. When they heard all he did for this was laugh, all of the adults exchanged startled looks. What kind of discipline was that? They all looked down at baby Harry in his mother's lap, who was now playing with Hickory's tail. If he had acted like that there would be a minimum of a verbal warning, not encouragement!

"What?" Sirius asked, startled about some cat doing anything like reading, let alone a map. Even in the wizarding world some things could just be odd.

"That's what it says," Remus confirmed.

"Think it really was?" James asked curiously, clearly like Mr. Dursley not sure if that had been real or some trick of his eyes.

Lily shrugged and admitted, "Unless it's an animagus, what else could it have been?"

"Well, since the possibility of an animagus being in a muggle dwelling are slim to none, we'll just have to read to find out," Remus pointed out.

"Why is that strange?" James asked when Remus spoke of all the cloak wearing.

"Muggles don't wear cloaks dear," Lily told him patiently.

"Don't they get cold?" He asked in surprise. Lily just shook her head, not wanting to get into it now.

"What on Earth has gotten into us?" Remus asked, slightly amused but mostly irritated at such carelessness.

"Something really big must have happened," Sirius deduced.

Everyone else gave him 'duh' looks before Remus went on.

When Vernon just convinces himself it was some collecting group, Lily decided, "Hopefully the rest of the muggles got that same line of thinking, don't want someone to get suspicious." Personally thankful that when they'd met James she'd convinced her then boyfriend to dress as a muggle no matter how silly he'd found it, but at least now the man didn't yet seem to have a clear connection to whatever was going on with them.

"Well, it's good to see he has a healthy diet," Sirius said sarcastically when he heard of walking to a lunch.

"Never mind what I said about the health thing," Sirius joked when all it was confirmed was a doughnut.

"We weren't paying much attention to you anyway," Remus told him without looking up.

Everyone looked around the room in shock when whispers of the Potters were first mentioned.

"What in the name of Merlin did we do?" James asked.

"Maybe you went on a killing spree." Sirius suggested innocently.

James threw a pillow at his best man, but as there really were no better suggestions, they looked back to Remus to continue.

Remus quickly told of Mr. Dursley trying to run back to his office and inform his wife of this, but ultimately seemed to decide against it and convinced himself he was over reacting, Potter must be a common name.

"No it's not," James snapped. "My family's a very prominent one, yet I'm the only line left." His voice stung, he didn't sound nearly as snappy at the end for having to even remind himself of his parents.

"It's actually pretty common among muggles," Lily told him gently to keep chatting rather than having to see such a look on him. "Come to think of it, so is my maiden name. I've actually met two separate people who have no relation to me at all with my old last name."

"Oh," James deflated and just waved Remus to keep going.

"Excuse me?" James snarled, temper right back when he heard of what kind of sister in law Vernon thought he had. "Like what exactly?"

"A witch," Lily told him with a straight face.

"Well at least he has manners," Lily said when Vernon apologized, even on impulse, for bumping into someone. "I certainly hope he takes those home to his son." She was still thinking of that breakfast scene of before.

There was a huge intake of breath all around before the news truly sunk in, of You-Know-Who vanishing! Then they all burst out in an explosion of happiness. It took a good while for them to all settle back down, and then James puffed up and stated, "I told you I'd be the one to do it."

"What in your fathead makes you think that?" Remus demanded.

"Well, they said Potter. Obviously I'm the only one to do it!"

"Could have been your Grandpa," Sirius pointed out just to egg him on though sadly the namesake had passed on as well. "They did mention Harry."

Lily gasped and clutched her son tighter to her, but James quickly tried to sooth her while giving Sirius a harsh look. "Don't freak her out like that."

He turned back to his wife and said, "I'm sure it has nothing to do with our son. Maybe they are talking about..." but he trailed off from there with no good answer.

She still managed to nod in some kind of agreement as she looked down at her baby. She didn't want her little Hare-Bare on the same continent as that, that horrid blight on existence, it was why they were in the Order after all, but if something had really happened...

"You know, this man's starting to remind me of my dad," Sirius said, rolling his eyes when he heard of Vernon's non approval of imagination for all this.

"That's a bit of a harsh insult," Remus noted. "We don't really know that much about this man yet. He could just be having a bad day." Sirius shrugged, he wasn't taking it back.

"What's wrong with cats?" Lily demanded upon hearing of the strange cat from the morning did not improve anyone's mood. She tickled Hickory's ear for emphasis, the cat purred in content as it wrapped its tail tighter around the baby.

"Still leaning away from the oddity of the cat?" James asked Remus when his face scrunched up finding the cat to only glare at Mr. Dursley when shouted at. Remus didn't give in easy, so he hurried on.

"That's a real accomplishment that is," Sirius said sarcastically, but considering shan't was a word he used often, Lily rolled her eyes at him.

"Ted?" Remus asked, interested at this bit of news on the news. "Don't suppose it's Ted Tonks? He's a muggle born who works for a news company if I remember correctly."

"Could be," Lily shrugged. "They didn't describe him. How should we know?"

"What on earth has gotten into us?" James asked, still more amused than anything and it wasn't like the whole of wizard kind to go about this type of thing.

When heard that Mr. Dursley can't bring himself to not speak up anymore even as he regrets it for their usual act of his wife not having a sister, everyone in the room looked rather upset at the reminder, but it was Sirius who looked rather guilty. Did he have any room to judge when he himself often pretended he did not have a brother for the opposite reason, for flaunting his pure blood status?

"Coward," James said, rolling his eyes. Though secretly he was pleased his name had this kind of effect on people.

"Hey!" James snapped. "Don't mock my son and grandfather's name."

Lily reached over and gave him an apologetic look for her sister.

Sirius on the other hand had something a bit more vocal to say, "Well it's a hell of a lot better than Dudley."

"Wow, thanks," James grumbled under his breath, now knowing he didn't want to be associated with these people either no matter their relation to his wife.

"His wife's related to a witch," Sirius said in disbelief. "How could it not affect them?"

"He's not the sharpest tool in the shed is he?" Lily asked.

Lily frowned as a new thought occurred to her upon a narration shift. "If my sister still hates me, what do they have to do with our world? If we don't even make up, my son will have little, if anything, to do with them."

James just shrugged and slung his arm around his wife as Remus read on.

When the context went back down to the cat, which had stayed still for hours until a man popped out of the ground, everyone except Remus was grinning, though he was frowning in thought as he asked, "now how did he manage to apparate without the cracking noise being described?"

"He probably apparated too far away to hear the noise and disillusioned himself to walk there, don't change the subject Remus. Admit it's an animagus now?" Lily asked.

Remus sighed in irritation before admitting, "Yes, alright. But why's McGonagall there?"

"What makes you say it's McGonagall?" Sirius asked in surprise.

"What other cat animagus do we know? And with those markings," Lily pointed out.

"Yes, because there's no such thing as an unregistered animagus," James sniped.

"When are you three going to register then?" Lily snapped, throwing him a dark look.

James and Sirius exchanged uneasy looks before Remus quickly jumped in, "Give it a few more years Lily, it really is quite advanced magic, and we've only been out of a school for a bit."

Quickly trying to change the subject Sirius said, "There could have been other animagi that we don't know of, or haven't transformed yet. We don't know when this is taking place."

Lily disagreed it couldn't be too much later, considering the earlier detail of how close in age the two cousins seemingly were.

James bypassed that and instead snapped his fingers saying, "I got it, what if Dudley's a wizard? It's a diluted line, but it could be. Might even explain why they're in this. Petunia will have to make up with you." Lily looked all too pleased with this statement while Remus and Sirius looked disgusted that a spoiled child would be around their little Marauder Junior.

"That sounds like Dumbledore," Lily said in surprise when Remus had kept going to describe more. "Now why are the both of them there? Surely you would just need one wizard there to test a young one."

"Come to think of it," Remus said slowly. "Why would anyone need to be there at all? Isn't there some kind of magic quill that says whether you can go to Hogwarts or not?"

He got no answer, none of them had ever spent the time to question this before. Stumped again, Remus went on.

"Cool!" all three pranksters breathed together at any kind of device to diffuse light, now they were hearing Dumbledore had one!

Lily raised a sharp brow in surprise. She, like the boys, was quite impressed with this bout of magic, though for a completely different reason then the trouble they could cause. She'd never heard of magic that worked with electricity, most magic actually caused electricity to not work properly at all. She couldn't help but wonder if this was an invention of Dumbledore's own making, and hoped it came up again.

"Told you it was McGonagall." Remus said with a grin.

"No one disputed that." Sirius huffed.

"You did." he reminded him.

"Not after you said- oh just shut up Moony."

"How can I shut up if you want me to read?" He asked with a wicked grin. Sirius satisfied himself with a scowl but with a monumental effort resisted arguing the point when his eyes flickered again to the stranger in this room..

James let out a slight snicker upon a question of McGonagall's identity as he demanded, "why wouldn't he know? I've heard that Dumbledore himself was the one who trained her. Plus wouldn't the headmaster know what his employee looked like when she transformed?"

"It was dark," Lily said with a shrug, still more distracted by the story and wanting to move this along, "I'd be mildly surprised as well."

"But why was she on some brick wall all day?" Lily begged the book at nothing but roundabout answer's.

"Wonder why he wouldn't have just apparated straight there?" James puzzled, those parties that kept being mentioned didn't seem that big of a deal for Dumbledore to stop in on.

"Maybe he was checking out some local information?" Remus shrugged.

"Maybe not," James agreed on the point of Deaduls Diggle having no sense, "but he's the nicest bloke you'll ever meet."

"You know, it's probably better that the wizards weren't trying to dress like Muggles," Lily pointed out, a friendly smile in place like she was trying to counter Mcgonagall now. "Seeing as they don't do that good of a job anyway."

"Hey!" James pouted. "I do an alright job."

"Yeah, after your wife dresses you." Sirius mumbled, glad he was far enough away that James could only glare at him, seeing as the parents were trying to refrain from cursing anyone with their son in the room.

When Remus finally reached the part of what must be the true conversation, McGonagall confirming to Dumbledore You-Know-Who as gone, and Dumbledore agrees; everyone exhaled a breath at the same time, none of them willing to admit that they'd still had doubts of this truth. Now that Dumbledore had said it, it had to be true!

Yet it only raised more questions on everything else going on, and with still more of an uneasy look at their intruder, Remus couldn't let the others celebrate much at all as he kept going.

"Why not?" Sirius asked, knowing he'd have taken that Lemon Drop on the spot, and didn't understand McGonagall's denial of it. "Any time is a good time for sweets."

"Sirius, you would stop in the middle of a motorway to pick up a Bertie Bott's Bean." Lily pointed out.

"Your point?" He demanded and Lily just rolled her eyes.

"I'm with Dumbledore on that," James agreed. "Never really did get why people don't say his name. Just gives him more power."

"You have to look at it from another perspective," Lily told them all. "Others who have been personally affected by the war have more reason to fear something. Saying Voldemort's name is like talking about a great war, don't talk about it don't think about it."

"That doesn't make any sense," Sirius argued back. "It's still going on, people are still dying. Not talking about it doesn't stop that."

"We could spend all day having this argument," Remus pointed out. "Why don't we finish this first hmm?"

"Fine," the others grumbled.

As McGonagall countered that Dumbledore could stand to say his name because he was the only person Voldemort feared, Remus was unsurprised that Dumbledore countered Voldemort had powers he never would. "That's only because he's too good of a person to use them," Remus said stoutly.

When Remus inadvertently repeated himself through McGonagall, his friend instantly pounced. "So Professor Lupin, tell us the exact wrist movement of a switching spell."

"Shut up Padfoot." Remus snapped, trying to pretend he didn't like the ring of that title. "You know it was true."

"Yeah, but I didn't mimic a teacher now did I?" Sirius demanded right back.

"Just you wait," he grumbled.

"I'd like to hear this myself," Sirius admitted, then quickly pressed on as James opened his mouth. "You know the real reason Voldemort's gone."

While James pouted Remus pointed out, "Well, if you guys would stop interrupting me maybe we could."

"You've been talking just as much as we have," Lily told him sternly and instead of commenting on that Remus carried on reading.

Remus seemed to instantly regret this, as he was forced to stutter out the apparent plan to come find his friends in Godric's Hollow.

Everyone in the room flinched hard at that, while a white looking James whispered, "I was joking, really I was. What did I do to have Voldemort coming after my family?" Sure he was in the Order, sure every member was a target, but what had changed to make the threat suddenly much more real than just being told that?

He looked desperately at his friends, as if begging one of them to tell him that he'd heard wrong.

Giving himself a slight shake, Sirius told him stubbornly, "I doubt you did anything to put anyone in danger James. Just read on Remus, I'm sure there was some sort of misunderstanding."

What was once a flinch could have counted as a convulsion, Remus actually looked like he was going to be sick, never again wanting to have to say his friends were dead.

"Li-like I said," Sirius managed shakily. "Mis-misunderstanding. Not true, McGonagall just heard wrong is all."

"There's still no proof this is real," James said quickly, as if determined to find a flaw in this. "Couldn't be too hard to find Petunia's name somewhere. This could be fake."

Nobody appreciated the confirmation Dumbledore seemingly gave, but with James' words in mind, Remus was able to go on in a still audible voice.

James somehow managed to get out a weak chuckle, an echo of his old laugh, as he said, "Well, it's nice to know she really did care."

"Course she did," Lily mumbled, looking down at her son in fear. "At least, about me anyway, she loved me because I was her favorite student. She's actually pleased to hear you won't be causing any more trouble."

'So that's why he married you' Sirius thought 'even learning that you might die, you can still joke around.'

There was an odd, pointed silence after this little speech of that nights events. Every eye in the room was either on the little baby in Lily's lap, or the black haired youth still passed out on the couch. No one could quite believe it; no one wanted to believe it. A world without Voldemort, free of fear and prejudices, yet at what cost? Remus was now trying to read as fast as he could, wanting to get a confirmation one way or another, fake or real?

The explanation was helped along by nothing involving McGonagall's questions, especially of how Harry survived.

"Yes little Harry, do tell," Sirius said quickly, looking for any excuse to get the solemn feeling out of the room. "The world's just dying to know your secret."

"Now's not the time Sirius," Remus spoke softly, but it was a clear reprimand that Sirius took, well, seriously.

"Why wouldn't that make sense?" James asked, at the mention of Dumbledore's planetary watch, glancing down at the one on his wrist.

"Not to Muggles it wouldn't." Lily reminded him, happy for any chance to get her mind off of this depressing subject. "Not to Muggles it wouldn't." Lily reminded him, happy for any chance to get her mind off of this depressing subject.

"Yes, but no one here's a muggle." James stated to which Lily just shrugged, unable to really answer that.

"That was dangerous," Lily snapped, fear for her child rearing its head at the news of why exactly McGonagall was there. "Hagrid shouldn't have told a single living, or non-living, soul about where my baby was. He might not have really known it was McGonagall he told. Could have been a Death Eater out for revenge couldn't it?"

"Calm down Lils," James said gently. "You know Hagrid's a bit gullible with a loose tongue. I'm sure he didn't mean any harm. In fact, Dumbledore might have said it was okay for Hagrid to tell McGonagall." Lily huffed and did not look keen on taking this answer until it was confirmed.

"If she didn't know why he was coming there, then why was she there?" Remus asked.

Lily wasn't very happy about thinking on this, but offered, "well if, if we had died-" she hardly got the words out and flinched terribly but kept going, "then possibly McGonagall may be there for my sister's protection. The whole Order does know I've a muggle sister, it couldn't have been that hard for her to find out and check on them for me."

"That was, nice," Sirius struggled to say, not really agreeing this should have been a top priority, but it made as much sense as anything.

The three boys slumped their shoulders at the reminder those Muggles were Harry's only family, but Lily looked even more panicked now. "Is he insane? My sister hates me and everything to do with Magic! This book has proven that so far, why would he send my son there?"

"Well like he said," James said quietly. "Voldemort's probably done my parents and yours in by now."

"That's right comforting that is!" Lily snarled, while James raised his hands in surrender and edged away slightly.

"I take back every bad thing I ever said about McGonagall." James muttered.

"That's a long list," Remus reminded him. "She did manage to catch us in the act quite a bit."

James shrugged and admitted, "She's trying to keep my son away from them, I take it all back."

"I'm with her on that one," Sirius said making a face at a letter involved in any of this. "Would it go something like Dear Muggles, this kid's a wizard who defeated an evil and powerful wizard, look after him until I can bother coming back, lots of love, Dumbledore ?"

Lily rolled her eyes at his antics and said, "Sirius, she already knows a bit about the magical world. It wouldn't be like that."

"Not the point." Sirius reminded her.

"That sounds right nice that does." James said with a cocky grin, rather pleased his name would be so well known, clearly looking for any stance of doing so even at the news of his sons supposed fame in detail by McGonagall.

"I think you missed the point of that statement James," Remus told him calmly, "but as Dumbledore's about to say it himself-" he turned his attention back to the printed words.

"Oh." James deflated. "Yeah I guess that would be a bad thing."

"'Guess?'" Lily hissed. "'A bad thing'? James Potter would you really want to be famous for this?"

"No." he admitted, mentally thinking he should put a bit more thought into what he said before he said it now.

"That's going a bit far." Lily said slowly. "I know Hagrid's heart is the right place but, well, he can be a bit careless."

"Oh Lil's, you worry too much." Sirius said brightly. "Hagrid's the best kind of protection Harry could ever ask for. You've seen the size of that bloke."

"Who hasn't?" James agreed.

"Argh!" Sirius groaned when Lily had essentially said the same thing as McGonagall. "Now we've got two bloody Professors in the room! You have no idea how horrid Professor Potter sounds."

"Be nice." Lily snapped, blushing slightly at that.

"If it makes you feel any better," Remus said slowly. "You could just call her Professor Evans, use her maiden name."

"No way!" James barked. "Do you know how long it took me to get Lily to admit that Potter was her last name now?"

"So you'd rather one of your family be a teacher then?" Sirius egged on.

James seemed to be in a physical pain at this dilemma, but Remus decided to ignore him for now.

"Gotta love these books descriptions anyway." Sirius laughed. "That's Hagrid to a T."

"Can't wait till they do yours." Remus muttered, thinking of all the lovely adjectives that would boost his friend's ego another few degrees.

"What?" Sirius yelped in shock. "Why the hell would I give Hagrid my bike? I won't even let Moony drive it."

"Yet you encourage a four month old to hold on to the handlebars." James reminded him.

"Now that I think about it," Remus said slowly, "why would Harry have to go there at all? Sirius is his Godfather, which entitles him to be caregiver should anything happen to you two."

That had the others stumped until Lily snapped her fingers and said, "Maybe they have to deal with the legal side of this first, make the paperwork go through for Sirius to adopt Harry, and Harry has to be with relatives until then."

"I guess." Sirius grudgingly accepted. "Though that still doesn't explain why I gave up my bike."

"You know it puts him to sleep," James suggested. "Hoped it would calm him down in the meantime."

Accepting this for now, Remus went on.

"What?" Lily yelped, scanning the hairline of her beautiful baby frantically. "He doesn't have a scar."

"That's proof right there that these books are fake." James exclaimed, a smile cracking over his face.

Hating every movement he was making, Remus made to stand up and go towards the kid on the couch, but Sirius stood up and stopped him with a hard look in his eyes. "Wait until the chapters over," he glanced at the book in Remus' hands and decided, "There's only a bit left. Let him have some peace until then." Remus did not agree, but thought it best to finish this chapter before their world really did go to hell.

Lily pursed her lips, hardly paying attention as he kept going, thinking 'well if Voldemort hasn't come to attack us yet, and Harry's still a baby in this, then maybe...'

"Interesting," Lily muttered sarcastically, not at all caring of any of Dumbledore's odd birthmarks. She wanted this to be done with already so she could have a proper look at what could be her future son.

"Aw, that's so sweet." Lily said sadly, her attention well caught on this bought of emotion from Hagrid. "He cares about my little baby."

"Who doesn't?" The others agreed, Sirius even so depressed he didn't even think to make a dog joke.

"Well that's nice too." Remus agreed with Hagrid's explanation for his tears. "Glad to know you two will be missed."

"Was that supposed to make me feel better?" Lily questioned.

"It made James feel better," Sirius pointed out. "His life's goal is to end up on a Chocolate Frog card."

"Haha, very funny guys." James said gazing down at his son without looking up.

"Remind me never to go to McGonagall for comfort." Sirius muttered with a frown, not even wanting to think how he would be feeling right now.

"Why would you?" Remus asked, slightly disturbed at the oddity of that sentence anyway.

Lily's eyes narrowed in suspicion for the start of what Dumbledore was doing with her child there, but she held her tongue to see if what she was thinking was true.

"Well I should hope so." Sirius grumbled, trying to find something else to think about rather than the situation at hand, and the return of his bike to him was even a moments distraction.

Upon McGonagall merely blowing her nose in response to Dumbledore's parting words to her,

"You think that means 'Yes sir', or 'I still can't believe what you're doing'?" James asked with a straight face.

"The second go with the second. It makes me feel better." Remus advised.

Remus did stop in surprise, but Lily best vocalized what he'd just told them.

"Oh for Merlin's sake." Lily hissed, while the other three looked on at her in shock.

"Something wrong Lily Flower?" James asked with some concern, she looked quite deranged.

"I've just found out my son's going to live with my sister who hates me, we're both dead, and now they've left my son who has an injury on his forehead ON THE DOORSTEP!" Hickory streaked away from the couch and curled up on top of the mantel to glare down at the lot of them. Little Harry woke up with a startled wail and looked around for the source disturbing his play mate.

James and Remus tried to make soothing motions with their hands but she was on a rampage, she even thrust Harry into James arms so she could stand up and continue. "They even said it was going to rain that night. What were they thinking! They could have done something, anything, other than what they just condemned my only boy to."

"Lils-" James started, but Lily did not seem in the mood to calm down, she stalked over to the body on the couch, determined to get this proven once and for all. Before she got too close Remus begged.

"Come on Lily, one more paragraph, see?" He even flipped over the book so she could see it. "Let me read this aloud, and then you can have it out, alright?" Seething, she hovered over the body with narrowed eyes, and fearing for his health Remus quickly read out.

"Sounds like a lovely first few days," Sirius muttered without thinking, and then hopped backwards onto the fireplace in shock at the look Lily gave him.

When Remus looked up to indicate he was done, Lily rushed forward and pushed back the long black bangs that would reveal their destiny.

* * *

In trying to find the bright spot in this happening to me as I'm want to do, I tried to consider this a good thing in that I was forced to go back and edit these old previous chapters. Aside from going back and making sure some grammar mistakes were updated, I never did much, and now I feel as if the commentary at least flows better and feels a bit more natural. Promise the next chapter will be up soon, as I'm almost done with Deathly Hallows now on Wattpad and wanted to come back here and make sure you all still knew I was alive and well. Once I'm done I'll be spending all my free time editing all the chapters in this way.

Also guys, I need some brutal honesty here. Is this style still coherent? Did you follow along? Should I try some other methods? Is there anything I can do to still make this a good read?

* Couldn't resist, you all still know what it is.


	2. Awakening

With the air of one pulling off a murderer's hood, Lily pushed back the black bangs to reveal the mark upon that forehead.

"I don't believe it-" Lily murmured quietly.

"It's really there-" Remus muttered.

"Like lightning-" James whispered.

The other three were stunned into silence, only managing to finish half a sentence, but Sirius, ever the rebel, burst out laughing. The others all exchanged worried glances, Sirius sounded quite deranged, but between loud guffaws he managed to speak. "Don't you guys see? This isn't real! It's got nothing to do with us. Maybe some alternate dimension where their Harry Potter was born with a scar on his forehead, but ours wasn't."

He went over to James and scooped baby Harry out of his arms, the little kid looked up at him with wide green eyes as he brushed aside the hair in the way and showed the others. "No scar, no problem."

James looked quite relieved and went over to kiss the center of his child's forehead as if in blessing for such a thing not existing, Lily and Remus, on the other hand, exchanged uneasy looks.

"We can't yet prove that Sirius," Remus said slowly. "There have been no dates, nothing to indicate when this book takes place. They didn't even say how old the little baby Harry was in that story. You were mentioned once, and I wasn't mentioned at all."

"Exactly!" James said, now starting to get excited. "That just proves what Sirius said. That's not our son."

All three boys stopped in their discussion as they heard something. It wasn't loud, or obvious, but a noise they all recognized nonetheless. Lily Potter had not moved an inch since the discovery of the scar and had merely been hovering over the familiar face with a look of devastation. It slowly turned to revelation, which had finally morphed to tender love. Slow steady tears had been trickling from her green eyes, splashing slightly onto his face. She did not seem aware of it, or anything else around her for that matter. What had alerted the men was a slight sniffling sound coming from her, as she slowly looked up at her husband.

"Don't say that James, please don't say that."

"But, Lils-" he started weakly but stopped when her eyes flickered back down.

"This is my son," she paused and took one step towards her husband, but still within the range of the sofa, then reached out and placed a hand on her only child. "Our son."

James seemed torn, his eyes flickering between the man on the couch and the infant in his best friend's arms. Sucking in a huge lungful of air, he finally said, "You, you want this to be true, do you? For us to-" his throat convulsed, he seemed incapable of getting the word out, but pressed on with everyone understanding him, "and our child to go and live with your sister."

She shook her head sadly from side to side and said quietly, "No not want. How could I ever want such a future for us? But it is ours. Our son grows up alive and healthy, and that's all that matters to me." She took her hand off the boy on the sofa and stepped forward to bury her face in James chest.

With a look of defeat on his face, James wrapped her up tight and the two took a moment to accept what was to be.

Remus and Sirius were not pleased, but Sirius could come up with nothing to say to bring the conversation around back to his line of thinking. Remus opened his mouth, and with a determined look on his face, he said, "I think we should finally wake this Harry up. He might be able to answer a few questions."

"Maybe not Moony," James said slowly, still not looking up from his wife. "You read the letter, he probably has no memories and doesn't even know who he is, let alone where, or when, he is."

Remus shrugged and raised his wand anyway, "Still, we've nothing to lose at this point."

No one in the room tried to stop him from using the spell to wake Harry, for they all had the same feeling about them; a sense of purpose, to strike out and fix what was wronged.

After a blast of light, he started to stir and raised his hand to his face where there were still a few wet spots from when Lily had cried on him. Then slowly, ever cautious, he opened his eyes and let them wander about the ceiling for a few moments before his eyes slid sideways to land on the four adults hovering over him.

For the briefest moment in time, something flashed in those emerald eyes, recognition maybe, but then it was gone to be replaced by solemn confusion.

He opened his mouth, closed it again and seemed to be mulling something over, then opened it again and finally said, "Hello."

This was hardly the response any of them had been expecting. Honestly, they were all expecting a barrage of questions the moment he found his tongue.

The boy was no danger to any of them, seeing as Remus had never returned his wand to his pocket, but the others still tensed up a bit as Lily went forward and lowered herself down to his eye level as she said quietly, "Hello yourself, do you know who I am?"

He frowned again, and he seemed to be struggling desperately with something before he answered, "No."

Lily nodded as if this did not surprise her, "My name's Lily Potter. Ring any bells?" she asked.

There it was again, an almost pained look about him as his mind grappled with something none of the others could see. The pause was longest of all so far until eventually he shook his head no in a depressed manner.

This time she frowned as if really hoping for a different response before asking gently, "Can you sit up?"

This too took a moment to process, but he then started shifting his weight around and looking down at his own body as if trying to remember how to do this as well. After a good ten minutes of seemingly nothing, he swung his legs down onto the carpet and sat up with shaky arms. Yet when he was done, he grinned up at them, seeming quite pleased with himself.

Now that he was sitting up, he seemed a bit more confident about himself and looked around the rest of the room and especially the other people with wide alert eyes. The others were just waiting, a bit tense still, for him to say something. They wanted him to make the first move, unsure how to proceed themselves.

After a time he cleared his throat and asked the room, "Do you know my name?"

Lily exchanged a look with James, who also came forward so that he was on eye level with him before he answered. "If you are who we think you are, then your name is Harry Potter, and you're our son."

He nodded once, his eyes flickering between the two and then said, "I can't remember anything. It's a bit disconcerting to not even be able to pull any kind of memory. But I believe you, I don't know why, but I guess I do."

"Go check a mirror," Sirius spoke up for the first time. "Trust me, you'll see exactly why."

"Very funny Padfoot." Remus rolled his eyes before turning to Harry, "Well then I guess we have to introduce ourselves since our dear friends have yet to, my name is Remus Lupin, and this is Sirius Black. That little baby he's holding is you by the way."

"Way to freak the kid out Moony," James muttered as Harry's eyes went wide and flickered to the baby in Sirius's arms. He then clutched his head again, pain flaring all over, before he relaxed again and asked, with agony still lacing his tone;

"What, but I mean, what?" he stuttered.

"Yeah no, I think we got that the first time," Sirius chuckled.

Lily reached forward and took hold of her son's hands gently, "We don't know how dear, but you're not from this time period. You shouldn't be this old right now. You were only born four months ago. Those," she gestured to the books on the table, "and a note came with you when you crashed down into our kitchen table. Does any of this ring a bell?" She asked kindly.

When Harry shook his head no, Sirius snorted and said, "Well I'd kind of hope not, since he was unconscious in everything you just described."

"Keep up the commentary Sirius and you won't be allowed to hold Harry for the rest of the day," James said in a pleasant voice.

Sirius scowled at him and tightened his hold on his little pup, but chose not to reply.

"So? What now?" Remus asked slowly, "I could try to reverse the memory charm placed on him, but it would be slamming a lot of stuff back all at once, could be dangerous. The kids lost his memories so he can't prove whether anything in here is accurate," he tapped the book looking around for some kind of answer.

Lily shot to her feet and snarled, "I told you Remus, this is my son. This is proven and nothing's going to change that so stop trying to say otherwise."

Remus quickly raised his hands in surrender and took a quick step back, while James said, "I'm with Remus, can't take the risk of trying to recover so many memories at one time. In fact, I think the best we could do is read these books with him, I'm rather curious myself about his life."

"I think that's a wonderful idea," Lily approved before sitting down on the sofa next to Harry.

Harry's eyes flickered around the room before settling on Lily, "So, err, if I read these books with you guys I'll remember everything again?" He confirmed.

"Maybe not everything," Remus conceded. "But hopefully these will help jog your memories. The more we replenish the more stuff should come back on its own."

It seemed that Harry didn't understand all of this, but he quickly nodded his head and agreed that he'd like to try.

"I have an idea!" Sirius chirped as his stomach rumbled. "Why don't we let Harry read the first chapter on his own, so that he's caught up with us? While he does that, we can eat."

"Sirius, you just ate two hours ago," Lily reprimanded.

"Yeah," he shrugged, "but you guys didn't, and I'm a bottomless pit."

"I like that idea," Harry agreed, eyeballing the book. Anything to get his memories flowing. He reached over and was about to grab it before he looked at his own hand and frowned, then looked up at his parents and said, "Err, where's a loo?"

James chuckled a bit before answering, "Down the hallway, second door on the left." Then he swished his wand to release the ropes that tied Harry's hands and ankles. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, "we didn't know-"

Harry shrugged as if he understood, on some deeper level, what James was hinting at. "Thanks," he said, then looked down at his legs.

Just like everything else he'd done, he sat there for a good few minutes before it seemed to occur to him that his legs would get up and move as he chose. He managed to walk over to the indicated door while only stumbling a few times and ramming into a dresser once.

Once in the kitchen, Remus gave a quick swish of his wand repairing the broken table, and when Lily bent down to start digging something out for a quick snack from a lower cupboard she spotted something gleaming now beneath their fixed furniture. Without the boys noticing, she filched it from the floor and entered it into her pocket.*

While Lily prepared a meal for them all, Harry managed to go into the bathroom for several minutes and just managed to close the book on his finished chapter when they all came back.

He locked eyes on his father for a long time, and they knew that he was probably comparing the sights he'd seen in the mirror to the man across from him. He then turned the replicated eyes on his mother. Taking in a deep breath he asked, "Why do I have so many scars?"

"Scars?" Lily asked, panicking immediately, "You only have the one." She reached forward and touched him gently on the forehead.

Harry relaxed under the touch and nodded, his fingers stopping the movement but still lingering as he continued, "Yes that one, but I have a few others." He raised up his fist and indicated some white writing on the back of his hand, though the words were too faded to clearly make out. He then lifted his shirt to reveal the other scar, dead center in his chest, another bolt of lightning.

All the adults exchanged horrified looks before looking back at Harry. Finally, Remus said slowly, "We don't really know, like your mother said, your time has come after us so this will be all new to us too. But I'm sure we'll find out."

Harry beamed at Remus, mostly for the 'your mother' remark, he seemed to like that.

A sudden flare of hope surged in Lily as she took a golden loop back out of her pocket and placed it in his hand, asking, "does this help at all?"

His eyes gleamed as he inspected it, before slipping it on as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Then his face fell as he kept looking. He added on without any real hope, "so I guess you wouldn't know about this either." He held up his left hand where the ring now proudly sat.

"Nope," Sirius said, popping the p for emphasis but his eyes lingering with maddening curiosity as well. "Though if you remember that first, I'd love to know."

Harry really did try as he gazed down at it, but all he got was the faintest of stirrings in his gut. He loved this ring and whoever it represented, but nothing came with it. Not a name or even the glimpse of the woman it was paired with.

"I'll read next," Lily offered, taking the book gently away from her son and flipping it to the right chapter, now just hoping to take that devastated look off his face.

"Look on the bright side, with these books here, we can change our future however we want," Sirius managed to get out before she started.

* * *

*Idea suggested by Nadiya C, this was such an adorable idea I had to rework this chapter just for that moment...and also I realized I never told that the table was repaired.


	3. THE VANISHING GLASS

"Yeah," James agreed with a slight grin. "One of us could be Minister if we play our cards right!"

"Or famous!" Sirius shouted.

"Or a teacher!" Remus jumped in.

His two friends froze with disgusted looks on their faces. "Honestly Moony, I will never understand why you insist on wanting such a profession," Sirius muttered.

"Yeah, nothing but paperwork and listening to kids complain all day," James agreed.

"Unless he got cool students like us!" Sirius amended, with a touch of excitement. "Then they could help make life entertaining."

Remus paled slightly at the prospect of teaching children like the Marauders. He had firsthand experience what kind of disaster that could be. Harry said nothing; he was merely watching this family with rapt attention. The first chapter had struck a hard cord inside him, as he realized he would grow up away from these people. Did he want his memories back if his own parents weren't going to be in them? He never found a chance to raise these questions however, since his mother had decided to ignore the others and start reading.

"Really?" Lily asked curiously.

"I do hope that means that we finally got through to Dumbledore," Sirius said with a straight face, "and that Harry's living with us now," and he gestured towards Remus, who was shaking his head sadly.

"You, Sirius, he'd be living with you. Werewolves aren't allowed to adopt, you know that." Harry jerked once in shock, as he appraised the man sitting next to him, but after a brief moment he relaxed again and pretended he hadn't heard a thing. If wizards existed, why not other creatures as well?

The others had continued on in the conversation, obviously not realizing such a slip had been made.

"Still, I would be able to adopt him and you'd be living with us. I could use all the help I could get in raising a kid, and we all know how much smarter than me you are." Sirius had continued in a slightly sarcastic tone at the end at that old joke.

"True enough," Remus chuckled, then frowned. "Though I'm still worried, if Harry's no longer living there, why would they make such a comment at that last sentence?" With a heavy sigh, Lily read the next sentence.

"Damn!" Sirius snarled.

"Then why didn't we come and get him?" Remus wondered, and they all turned to Harry as if expecting an answer. He however merely shrugged, as lost as them.

"What a pleasant wake-up call," James said as he rolled his eyes.

Remus quirked a brow in surprise at the comment; how thin was the walls in that house for Harry to have heard that?

"Wow, what a mind," Remus whistled. "To be able to remember that."

"I don't think he actually remembers," Lily shook her head. "Just his subconscious dredging up things."

"If only my memory was still that good," Harry sighed, rubbing his temple in agitation, wondering if he slept now what kind of dreams he'd have.

That stopped Lily cold as she turned from the book to her son, "They made you cook? You were probably just ten, and they had you cook?" she demanded, eyes flashing.

"Maybe I like cooking," Harry shrugged, unable to come up with any other reason for this.

"What's the big deal?" Sirius shrugged. "If he can reach the stove he can get his own food, faster that way."

Lily groaned and James shot him a look that clearly said 'you're not helping.'

Harry jolted in surprise, suddenly having a horrid sense of Déjà vu, but why? Was Dudley's birthday a major event in his life, something that would help him? With high hopes he egged his mother to go on.

It took a moment for that news to sink in, but once it did you'd think someone had died in the household. With a snarl of rage Lily dropped the book and lunged to her feet, as if she were intending to march to her sister's house with an army and tear every joint out of place, slowly. James didn't know what to think, was this some kind of sick joke? He reached down and picked up the book, determined to see this for himself. There were the words printed bold as brass upon the page. He too got up and made to go and curse those Dursleys to jelly for forcing his son to sleep in a cupboard. That was a place for shoes, not his son!

Remus and Sirius seemed to be more in shock, still reeling from the fact that they had not picked Harry up at the first moment. Where were they? Had something happened to them too? Perhaps the Death Eaters had killed them as well, but Dumbledore and McGonagall had not known yet, or it had happened a short time later. It was a very surreal fact to realize you were going to die.

Harry was just looking around the room in confusion;he did not really understand how or why they were so upset. Wasn't that normal?

Losing air in her lungs, Lily ceased spouting verbal abuse and strode towards the door, wand in hand. No one made a move to stop her, so Harry quickly got to his feet and stood in front of his mother with a pleading look. "It's okay, it hasn't happened yet. Or it already happened, or...oh never mind. The point is, can't do much about it now can you? I'm okay, and I doubt I was in there long. Maybe something was wrong with my room." He paused as he tried to remember this, and a vague memory of cramped and dark living conditions crept upon him, but nothing more than that.

James shook his head violently from side to side and said, "Harry, it said that was where you slept, and even if there was something wrong with your bedroom, you should share a room with your cousin before you slept in a bloody cupboard."

Feeling exasperated but unwilling to let his parents leave him, he cast his mind about for some other way to keep them here, until the baby started crying. He looked around in relief as little baby Harry kicked up a fuss in Sirius's grip, and Lily deflated as she rushed over to comfort him. James seemed to be teetering on edge, obviously wanting to go and right the wrong that had been done against his son, but looking into both of their faces; decided he couldn't leave, not quite yet.

With a sigh of relief Harry went back to the couch and sat between his parents again, and Lily transferred baby Harry to James while she got the book and went back to her place, while the older Harry sat rubbing at his temples. Just from the little he had read, a vague sort of feeling had come over him, along with the cramped feeling of before. How long had he lived in that cupboard? It must have been a while, if he could remember nothing more than that spacing. His mother, finally a little bit calmer, was ready to read on.

When James opened his mouth to ask, Sirius quickly jumped in with, "Muggle stuff James. Don't ask."

He was given a surprised look before Lily really did ask, "How would you know that?"

Sirius snorted and reminded, "I did take Muggle Studies."

"But you actually paid attention?" Lily demanded, only half joking.

Sirius simply shrugged, enjoying her shock. "Sure, I took the class to piss me mum off. What better way than to get a NEWT in the class." Lily and Remus both rolled their eyes before Lily went on.

"Oh great," Lily sighed. "My son's going to grow up with a bully."

"Hey!" The boys all snarled at the name of Dudley's victim, before James spoke. "Great, he not only grew up with a bully, but he's victim to him as well."

"I'm sure his parents at least try to prevent it," Lily said in a hopeful voice.

Remus snorted, unconvinced. "Please Lils, do you not remember where he sleeps?" Again, they all turned to Harry, like they wanted an answer, but he just shrugged. He vaguely remembered being knocked to the ground quite a bit, but not much else or who did it.

Lily and James both pursed their lips at the reminder of his sleeping arrangement, while Sirius and Remus laughed for the kids depiction of himself. "Nope sorry kid, that's genes. Your father was a scrawny git when I first met him," Sirius snickered for Harry's benefit.

"Oi!" James snapped, but had no way to deny it.

Harry merely beamed as he realized he was even more like his father.

"Are you kidding me?" Lily yelped in anger. "They don't even buy him his own clothes?"

"That can't be right," Remus frowned. "What on Earth would the school think? One boy comes in looking prim, while the other looks half sick?" James and Sirius were fuming up a storm, both wanting answers and revenge but unclear of how to get it yet.

"A perfect combination of your parents that is," Sirius told him, managing to bring up a smile for the older Harry, who again couldn't help but beam with pride.'

"Let me guess," Remus snarled. "Your Aunt and Uncle couldn't be bothered to ever get you new ones, or even bother to ask how they were broken?" Harry merely shrugged and tapped the tip of his glasses, deciding they were probably only fixed now because he had fixed them himself with magic.

"What!?" shouted all of the adults in the room, outraged that Petunia would lie about something like that. The combined volume of their fury once again set the baby off, causing them to quiet down, though they were no less angry. Lily made to set the book down and reach for her son again, but James waved her off and cradled his son close, crooning to him and apologizing for startling him. Hickory heard the disturbance and slunk down from the mantle and crawled up onto James lap, settling himself close to Harry's face again. Once the cat's tail was back in his view, baby Harry started to giggle and attempted to grab at it, settling him down once more.

Now that all the shouting was done, Remus turned on the adult Harry and demanded, "You grew up for ten years thinking that your parents died in a car crash?"

Harry shrugged, unable to fully answer him with his fuzzy memories, but unwilling to admit that he believed that was true. Sirius had a mad look on his face as he spat, "But Dumbledore left a note explaining what happened to them in your bedding clear as day. No way could they have missed it! How could they lie about such a thing?"

Lily's mind was frantic, trying to come up with some excuse for her sister. She was not in a forgiving mood after the treatment it implied her child had been getting, but finally settled on the most plausible thing she could think of. "Maybe she just said that until he gets his Hogwarts letter. She's trying to protect him from the horrible truth, just like Dumbledore wanted. He might have even told them to do it."

Sirius twisted around and spat in the fire to let out his agitation as James growled, "If he did then he'll be hearing from me! Lie to my son about something like this! You can't really believe that?" Lily deflated, no she didn't believe it, but she didn't want to think her sister would do something like this either. So she went on reading, ignoring the irritated glares in her direction.

Remus frowned in agitation. "How do you cover that one Lils? Don't ask questions; it's as if they're trying to pretend he doesn't even live there!"

Lily still had her head ducked towards the book, unwilling to admit that it seemed this way to her as well.

As pleasant as his wife," Sirius growled at Vernon's apparent morning greeting.

James snorted, "Yeah, if baby angels look like blond piglets." His friends gave appreciative snorts of amusement for that.

At the moment Harry's thoughts seemed to parallel, they all roared with laughter. "It's official , you are their son," Remus decided.

"When was it unofficial?" Harry asked, though he too seemed pleased by this.

Everyone in the room had astounded looks on their faces at the news of his count of presents. "Why would he even remember such a thing?" Lily wondered.

Harry on the other hand was busy mulling over memories that he was pretty sure had come from his early childhood and decided that this was quite common, and had finally settled on the fact that he did indeed remember this day, and suddenly wanted to encourage his younger self to hurry up and finish his breakfast.

"The way she talks to him!" Lily rolled her eyes. "I don't even talk to baby Harry like that, and he's less than a year old."

Sirius shrugged and said, "Maybe the lot of them have a mental disorder and they can't process things above a year six level?" James and Remus snickered at that.

"How often did that happen?" Sirius asked curiously, honestly enjoying the mental image of flipping a table himself onto these excuse for people.

"About once a month since he was five," Harry said automatically, and then jolted in surprise at what he said. He didn't know how he remembered that, it just sort of came out.

The others were all looking on, his parents with disapproval, and the other two with glee. "You're getting your memories back!" Remus said with a grin.

"What a horrible child," Lily muttered.

"I can't believe you grew up with that boy," James grumbled.

Everyone in the room looked appalled when Lily had kept going and immediately spluttered, "That is so not the way you deal with an impending tantrum!"

"Did I say six years old?" Sirius asked with a straight face when he heard Dudley couldn't even do simple math. "I meant two."

"That's obviously the way they dealt with it in the past," Remus sighed.

"At least the father's not in on it," James said grimly. "He's been silent so far."

"Wait for it," Harry muttered.

"I stand corrected," James groaned, looking more upset about their behavior than the fact that he was wrong.

"You're not standing Prongs," Sirius corrected with a bright smile just to pick back the mood for a second.

His friend gave him an exasperated look and Harry snickered in surprise so it seemed to have worked.

Before the pure-blood could open his mouth again when details of the presents came out, Lily and Remus quickly said, "Later."

"Huh," Sirius said in surprise, "that's usually what we give wizards when they come of age." His eyes quickly flashed to the watch on the grown Harry's wrist, and then flickered to the one on James. They were not the same one, as they should have been.

"Who gave you that one then?" Remus asked as he gestured at the slightly dented watch.

Harry glanced down at his wrist, almost as if he'd forgotten he had it on, and then frowned in agitation. All he could remember was a sense of warmth, and perhaps a hug, as he tried to remember. When he told the others, they all looked slightly happy at that, but James was still frowning. Harry should have gotten his watch, been hugged by Lily when he received it.

"What does she mean, 'take him?'" Lily asked in surprise to whatever this nonsense was speaking of her son about now. "Surely wherever they're going they planned on taking my son."

"Come off it," Sirius scoffed. "You really believe that from what we've seen so far?" Lily pursed her lips before going on.

"You've got to be kidding me," James snarled with clenched fists when they were told of Harry's usual stay outside the Dursley's house, but quickly relaxed when the baby in his arms squirmed. Sirius twisted around and spat in the fireplace again, while the others vented their frustration by cursing themselves.

Harry merely watched, almost amused by their reactions. He had no problem with this, why would he want to be around these people more often anyway? They didn't seem to be very good company, unlike the people he was with now.

"Argh!" Sirius groaned when they were given a brief description of Mrs. Figg's place."I feel so sorry for you Harry."

"Why?" Harry asked curiously, it didn't sound very pleasant but Sirius' reaction seemed a little extreme.

"Cabbage, that's the worst thing I could think of, pure torture that is," Sirius grumbled.

Harry couldn't help but laugh again at such an extreme reaction from the man over something so small, and was quickly learning that's just how Sirius was. His smile lingered even as Lily kept going over the Dursleys' chatter of him.

"I bet," James snorted. "I can just imagine my son plotting how to break an old lady's leg."

"Really?" Harry asked with a frown.

"No sweetie," Lily said smiling. "He was joking."

Remus smiled and said, "One thing you should learn quickly about those two," he jerked his head in his friend's direction. "Don't take much of what they say seriously." Remus winced in horror at once as he realized his slip a moment too late.

"I take everything Siriusly," Sirius said at once, while the others just groaned and Harry laughed even harder, with the sudden realization he'd been doing that more in the few moments he'd awoken in here than his whole childhood at that place. It was a distraction for him as Lily kept going about Harry's feelings towards Mrs. Figg.

"Hum," Remus said thoughtfully. "Isn't there a Figg in the Order? She's not quite as old as Harry leads us to believe, plus she's a squib. I know she breeds kneazles then names them ridiculous things to throw off what they are."

"Could be," James agreed. "After all, Harry is 'The Boy Who Lived'. Dumbledore probably wants an Order member close to him."

"If so," Lily said in a cold voice. "Why wouldn't she have told him about the treatment Harry receives? Even if he never told anyone, it seems apparent just by the description of him."

"Right," Remus deflated. "Forget I mentioned anything."

"Who's Marge?" Sirius asked with a frown, clearly knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

"The name rings a bell, I can tell you now she's not someone we'd like to meet," Harry answered, also frowning.

All the adults exchanged looks, knowing that if Harry was acting like this without the memories to reinforce such feelings, they were going to hate this woman.

"I'd go with the first option," James sneered, "if only because it makes me feel better than calling my son a slug."

"That is horrible," Remus snarled. "How could you treat anyone like that?"

"Prejudices," Sirius said quietly, his mind flashing back to when he had suggested bringing Remus round to his place once. He regretted that thought at once.

Lily looked up in surprise. "I can't believe Petunia's still friends with Yvonne. They were always going on about traveling together, but Yvonne left a few years ago without Petunia. Tuney swore she wasn't ever going to talk to her again for that."

James shrugged and said, "I suppose she changed her mind."

"Well she can't have many friends, probably made up with her to at least claim she still had one," Sirius snorted derisively.

A few hours ago Lily would have told Sirius off for talking about her sister like that, but then her mind swiveled back to the cupboard, and she held her tongue.

When Harry offered he could be left home alone, Remus said with a grin, "They might do that if they don't think like Harry. I believe the phrase that runs through their minds is 'see or not to be seen'. If we're still going with the assumption that they are trying to ignore his existence, Harry might just get away with that."

"Let's hope they don't think like Harry," Sirius muttered.

The idea was immediately dismissed by Petunia's statement.

"What do they think he's going to do," James rolled his eyes. "Burn it down?"

"This is awesome!" Sirius crowed when Harry had essentially said the same thing. "Now we've got a nice round number of think-a likes!"

You could almost hear the crickets chirping in the background after that kind of declaration as Remus shook his head slowly and said, "Really Sirius? Really?"

"What the bloody hell?" Lily hissed at the thought of leaving her boy in a car all day! "My son is not a dog!"

"You know, technically, you're not even supposed to do that to dogs," Remus said wisely. "Even if you leave the windows open a little, the direct sunlight streaming into the car without any, or little, ventilation outwards can cause heat strokes in dogs. The bigger the dog, the more likely."

"Thank you for that educational lesson Professor," James rolled his eyes. "Now I feel bad for locking Padfoot in the sun room last week."

"You did that?" Sirius yelped. "You told me Peter did that!"

"I lied," he said simply, smirking a little.

Harry felt an instant of blood chilling hatred for something Sirius had just said, but the combination of his ingrained no questions habit and honestly not even sure how to address such a feeling made it quickly fade to the back of his mind before he even recognized it.

Lily sighed as she realized what her boys were trying to do, pissed though they were as well, they were helping her to try to take her mind off of it. It was in vain however, as she still had to keep reading.

"Yeah, cause that's the most important part of that suggestion, the newness of the car," Sirius rolled his eyes as he twisted around to spit in the fire.

Remus leaned forward and rubbed his temples in agitation, just imagining the noise of fake crying was giving him a horrid headache. While the other three adults were shooting each other significant looks, knowing full well that all three would like to pop that kid a good one in the mouth when they were still kids. Harry was still frowning, straining to remember what happened.

"And the year levels are still dropping," Sirius chuckled at the new nickname.

"You keep going with that and you're going to reverse them back into the womb," James reminded him.

Sirius just shrugged, clearly saying 'it works.'

The moment it was told of Dudley's look being shot at Harry, the reaction was instantaneous.

"Jerk-"

"Prat-"

"Oaf-"

"Pig-"

"Arse."

They all looked at each other, startled upon realizing they had all used different insults that still fit him perfectly.

"It almost makes you feel for all these ugly people," Harry sighed dramatically, causing the rest of the room to chuckle more in surprise than anything Harry was so openly mocking Dudley's friends arrival, giving them the hint he wouldn't always remain the quiet kid he'd mostly been so far.

"Charming boy that one is," Sirius sneered as he tried not to picture whose arms this new friend of Dudleys, Piers*, he would have been holding.

"'Course he stopped," Remus snarled, though he couldn't pretend he wasn't grateful even the mockery of the noise was gone from his head in picturing all this. "Can't look weak in front of your awful friends."

"You can show any emotion around real friends," Lily agreed quietly, coming to the sudden realization that it had not mentioned one single friend of Harry's.

"I don't think a zoo trip's worth that," James wrinkled his nose at the idea of being crammed in the backseat with those turds.

"Yeah, was there even space?" Sirius pondered, picturing half the back seat taken up by that pig.

"They- they wouldn't do that, would they?" Lily gasped, horror etched into her face. Locking him up until Christmas had to be at least six months considering it was the middle of the summer as far as she could tell of this narrative.

"I doubt that," Sirius muttered with a horrible look on his face. "Unless they don't value their lives at all." Harry pursed his lips and did not comment.

"That's not right," Remus muttered sadly. "No child should have to grow up with no one listening to them."

"I didn't totally grow up that way," Harry muttered to himself, trying to recollect this vague sense of friendship he had. He was hoping that, like with this birthday, more memories would come back to him if he had more Déjà vu. So far, nothing, he could just remember his childhood, which wasn't that pleasant to remember anyway.

"That's not right!" James hissed in outrage. "Unless you consented to that, and I doubt you did, they shouldn't have lopped off all your hair. I don't care how old you are!"

Harry decided not to mention that his Aunt had threatened him with a week in his cupboard if he so much as flinched to try and stop her, since there was nothing he could do about it now and it would probably just upset him further, and was even more relived at the next line reverting the affects anyways.

"Good," James sighed in relief, running his hand through his hair.

"Your hair is way too important to you," Remus joked.

"Why shouldn't it be? It's what got me this beautiful family," James agreed.

"I did not fall in love with you because of your hair," Lily snapped. "That's what kept me away from you for all those years!" Before they could get into a familiar round, Remus cleared his throat, to Harry's disappointment as for some reason watching bickering felt very familiar to him, and Lily read on.

"That- that- that-!" Lily stuttered, unable to come up with a proper insult for her sister actively locking Harry in that place for any length of time! No, no Petunia Dursley was no longer her sister, she didn't deserve the title. No Tuney she had ever known would do this to her son.

The males were clearly just as upset but after a look at Harry, who was staring apprehensively around the room as if thinking they were all going to start yelling at him. Then let out the breathe he was holding when they merely scowled and started muttering all the things they'd like to do to those relatives of his.

Even at the news of Harry not being punished for something didn't seem to quell them.

"You never should have been," They all snapped at once, startling baby Harry in James arms.

"How much is terrible trouble?" James growled, rounding on his son.

Harry just shrugged and tried to put an innocent look on his face, but Remus intervened. "Don't lie Harry, that face isn't going to fool us. You remember, now tell."

With a huge sigh Harry admitted, "A week in the cupboard, and a week of chores." While the adults started muttering in disgust, Harry mentally added 'and a day without meals.'

"Nice, you apparated!" James tried for a grin at his sons display of magic rather than continuing to purse shouting.

"I don't think so," Lily shrugged. "He probably would have described that odd feeling, he could have just flown."

"Either way," Sirius whistled low in his throat. "Damn."

Their thoughts were once again ripped off of the child's magic in favor of that horrid home life.

"How skinny were you, for you to believe that?" Sirius asked at such a bizarre explanation as the wind.

Harry chuckled slightly and said, "I also thought the over large clothes would act as a parasol, help catch the wind."

Far from finding this amusing, it merely aggravated them that his clothes didn't fit properly.

"Yeah, I suppose," James amended his earlier statement at Harry's thought of just being anywhere new. "When you put it like that."

"Moony, I bet you can't guess his top three favorite things to complain about!" Sirius said, choosing to make a joke out of it rather than curse some more.

Remus decided to play along as he pretended to mull it over and said, "Um, people at work, the bank, and the council."

"Err!" Sirius made a sound like a buzzer. "It's Harry, then Harry, then Harry!" Harry burst out laughing at their antics, so the bantering served its purpose.

"What's wrong with motorcycles?" James asked as he rolled his eyes.

"Jamesie, let me put it to you this way; if it's cool, he doesn't like it," Sirius said with a straight face and a serious tone.

"Why on Earth would you do that?" Lily moaned when her son pipped up about his own dream of motorcycles, hoping this wouldn't ruin her son's, rare, good day. If they had learned anything about those Dursleys, it was that Harry shouldn't be drawing attention to himself.

"Sorry," Harry muttered. "It was the euphoria of being out, besides it's not like they ever listened to what I said anyway. Mostly they just ignored me if I did say something. Didn't expect them to actually hear me." Nobody appreciated this bit of honesty.

"Pity he didn't actually crash," Sirius sighed.

"Sirius!" Lily snapped. "My son's in that car."

James shrugged and said, "Yeah Lils, but he's a wizard, it wouldn't even scratch him. Plus, I like the irony," and a dark look overtook him as he remembered that horrible lie.

"Yes, but if he did crash, he'd blame it on Harry," Remus pointed out, which put a stop to any kind of thinking like that.

"Shows what you know," Sirius sneered, though the ability of flight in motorcycles was low on his list of sharing with Vernon. He'd start much closer to the top, like where his intestines were soon to be hanging.

"I don't think it's you, so much as you might mention them to your cousin," Remus said slowly when Harry expressed his thoughts on the Dursleys feelings of such things.

"What's a television?" James asked instead of snapping that wasn't helping like he wanted to.

"Eh, it's kind of like if the pictures that we talked to had backgrounds that moved as well, inside a box. Runs on the Muggles form of energy called electricity, that's how they were watching the news on the first chapter," Sirius happily explained. He knew James had a good reason for not having registered that the first time, but he would have thought back on that eventually so he just added it on now. James nodded in understanding, not pressing for more details like he wanted to.

Lily kept things going by speaking of the ice cream stand, but all of the adults still shifted in agitation, thinking 'at least he got some thing.'

"That's right Prongslet," James patted adult Harry on the top of his head when he heard the inclusion of Harry's thoughts on the gorillas. "Think positive." Harry laughed at the way he was doing that, but then determined that he would have to ask about those nicknames they kept using when the chapter was over.

Lily shot a disgusted look at the Marauders, clearly remembering their favorite hobby on the occasions they got bored in the school corridors, but she was in too much of a temper to really go at that now. Besides they had, in the past few years, made it clear to her that they did at least slightly regret doing those things.

Harry frowned, but chose not to bring up the fact that the book left a little something out. The only reason he had been allowed to finish it was because it was half melted in the sun and Piers had refused to eat it because it had looked disgusting . Uncle Vernon had shoved it roughly to the side and Harry just took it and no one stopped him. The adults in the room looked so pleased that Harry had gotten something like that; he just couldn't bring himself to mention his memory.

The book left the ominous note in Harry thinking it was all too good to last.

"Dun, dun, dun…" Sirius said in a low tone voice.

"Sirius." Lily scolded .

"Sorry Lils." Sirius said trying to hide a chuckle only to get a glare from Lily.

"A lovely thought, that one," all three boys sighed, clearly daydreaming this very thing and many other ways to torment Vernon.

"Poor snake," Sirius shuddered, "having to get a close up of that."

"I don't believe it!" James pretended to faint. "Who are you and what have you done with Sirius? He would never say poor snake! Horrible snake maybe, disgusting snake probably, but never poor!"

Sirius just shrugged and said, "I have nothing against the animals, 's'not their fault, so don't take things out of context mate." James pouted slightly because Sirius hadn't played along but let it go for now.

"I didn't know he could do anything smartly," Remus gasped upon the window comment, making Harry chuckle.

"It's an expression Remus," Lily rolled her eyes while Remus frowned at her.

"I know that Lily." Remus grumbled.

"Sounds like fun to me," Sirius drawled. "Parties every night and people to freak out, what more could you want?" This time the others just ignored him.

"Your life's got to be really bad if you're sympathizing with a zoo animal," Remus muttered, mostly to himself.

"Snakes can't blink," Lily frowned. "They don't have eyelids."

"Maybe it's a trick of the light," Harry agreed, trying to think back to what was about to happen.

All four of them frowned, finding this action of raising up to look at Harry rather odd of a common animal, perhaps the snake did tricks?

"It-" James started, and then stopped, seeming unable to keep going. Sirius and Lily also had astounded looks on their faces. Harry frowned and edged away from them, having a faint memory of lots of eyes boring into him with hate, fear, and dislike.

Remus caught sight of this first, and quickly said, "It's alright Harry, we're not mad at you. Just confused. Parseltongue goes down through bloodlines, and James isn't one. We just don't understand why you're one."

"Oh." he muttered, relaxing again at that, but then frowned as the word tickled something in his mind. "What's a parseltongue?"

"It means you can talk to snakes. You speak parseltongue, so you're a parselmouth," Sirius said slowly, still trying to get over the shock.

Lily and James exchanged a look, and decided that they wouldn't tell him they were so freaked out because the only snake talking people were those of very dark and evil magic, but this was their son. No, they wouldn't give him any more to worry about, so Lily just read on. Taking the hint, neither Remus nor Sirius intended to go into any further details either.

"I rather like this snake," James laughed, trying to shake off the last of his confusion. "It's right friendly."

"You were taking this rather calmly," Lily voiced, "had this happened to you before?"

"No," Harry shrugged, "but after all of the weird things that had happened to me, I just kind of went with this." Privately adding it was nice to talk to anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to him like this reptile was doing. He had often spoken to the spiders in his cupboard sometimes in this same way, though they'd never responded back of course.

"I doubt it could have been that fast," Sirius snickered as he tried to visualize Dudley rushing back to see this.

All three males clenched their fists at him shoving Harry so hard, wishing they were ten years old again so they could punch that git in the face and not get into as much trouble for it.

"What happened?" the boys asked in excitement upon hearing of Dudley's fear, hoping their little Marauder Jr. would come up with something more creative than punching him back later.

"The glass went wherever it wanted to," James rolled his eyes.

"That was a pointless interruption James," Lily snapped, starting to get to the end of her rope.

"Quite the clean-up job for Ministry though," Remus chuckled.

"Knew I liked that snake," Sirius laughed, he'd find some way to give it a treat for snapping at Dudley even playfully.

"If only, if only, if only," James hummed under his breath, even with his ire at such a horrid child though, he really wasn't going to consider hurting the kid and was glad the snake hadn't done any real harm like these boys were exaggerating.

"No!" all the adults gasped, now Harry was going to get in trouble again! Piers tattling like this was the worst thing that could have been done! They were all shaking, just a bit. What kind of punishment would he really get for putting his cousin in danger?

"Why?" they all hissed at once, trying not to picture those reasons of why Dudley's friend would have to leave the house first.

"No meals?" Lily murmured, looking faint.

James quickly placed baby Harry in her arms, which seemed to steady her, but then he lunged to his feet and started swearing at the top of his lungs. In a fit of pure rage Sirius summoned up a pillow off the sofa and stuffed it in his mouth to keep himself from doing the same while his hands clenched and unclenched as if wishing to wring somebody's neck.

Remus jumped to his feet and spat in the fire, and Sirius noticed that there was a bit of blood in there. He must have bitten his tongue with the effort of not copying James' actions. "I can't believe this" Remus growled, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, looking very much like a mother wolf protecting her cubs. "I really can't believe any of them. Even Peter or Sirius alone would be better guardians than them!"

Sirius would have made a comment about that any other day, but now he felt that Remus had never spoken truer words. Harry went around to all of them and did his best to reassure them, until they were all at least quiet enough or still whispering mutinously but low enough to hear, that Lily went on. Lily gently deposited baby Harry back into James' arms so she could finish the chapter.

Lily clenched her jaw so tight her vision started to blur to keep the tears away; you shouldn't have to sneak around your own home! Even if that was the farthest thing from home any one could picture.

The boys were all looking murderous that Harry would have to put such useful skills as sneaking about to something like that, but managed to hold their tongues.

Sirius twisted and spat in the fire for that horrid reminder, and noted absently how badly it was starting to sputter out. He quickly pulled out his wand and helped the flames back up to a healthier level while the others looked at him enviously, wishing they could do something similar to vent.

Now they were all shifting their weight around, trying not to picture what had been done to their Harry, and a blinding flash of green light was no good omen.

"We ran a green light," Lily muttered snidely, wishing more than anything she could answer for Harry what had happened to them.

Everyone deflated like tires with punctures in them. "You, didn't even know what we looked like?" James asked sadly.

"I do know," Harry reminded him, "now. Besides, like you guys pointed out at the beginning of the chapter, you can fix this. We can read all this, and hopefully I'll remember enough so that we can prevent this from happening. I can grow up with you guys."

"Nothing would ever please us more," Lily whispered.

Both Remus and Sirius winced at that, convinced they must have died, as well as Peter, to leave Harry like that.

"That's not family," Lily hissed in outrage, but did not need to elaborate, they all knew what she meant.

"Huh," Remus muttered. "Those are probably surviving members of the Order. I can't believe Dumbledore would just leave you there with no one watching you."

"Look what good it's done," James muttered in disgust.

"That was horrible," Lily murmured, flipping to the next chapter. "I don't think I can stand another chapter about your younger years."

James reached over and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder before saying softly, "It's okay Lily flower, I'd like to think his Hogwarts letter will be coming soon, very soon, and then they'll have to treat him decently. They'll know he's a wizard, and wouldn't do a thing to him."

Lily sighed, unconvinced, but passed the book to James none the less as she took her son back.

* * *

Hope this chapter was okay. It's one of my favorites, if only cause I love the peoples reactions to this and the next one. I always mark how good a story this is, or could be, by this and the next chapter. So I'm hoping sincerely that you guys are pleased with this one.

*Piers Polkiss is the biggest clue that Peter Pettigrew was the real bad guy of book three. Seriously, face like a rat, even their names are eerily similar! He even rats out Harry in this very chapter like Peter did to James and Lily all those years ago. JK did it again!


	4. THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE

James quickly began reading, dying to know about his son realizing his true heritage, but then he froze after only one sentence, feeling bile rising thick and fast in his throat.

"Longest ever punishment?" Sirius hissed,"and how long would that be?"

All eyes swiveled to the adult Harry, who remained quiet and was hoping this would quickly pass. Then his mum surprised him by placing her hand gently on his shoulder and whispering, "It's alright dear, no one is blaming you. We just want to know."

Once again relaxing at her touch, he finally admitted, "A month, give or take a bit."

Lily pursed her lips, determined not to start screaming again after she had just reassured her son.

Remus managed to ask through clenched teeth, "When it said, locked up, what exactly did that entail?" At first he had thought of it like grounding a child, in a more medieval fashion but still. The no meals thing had pushed him to question this further.

Harry didn't really want to answer, as his Aunt and Uncle had always threatened far worse punishment if he ever told the school about his sleeping arrangements, but his Aunt and Uncle weren't here. These people had shown nothing but loving kindness to him, who was by all accounts a stranger. They deserved the truth. "I was let out once a day to use the loo; otherwise I was literally locked up." He said quietly.

"Did they ever hit you?" James snapped almost before Harry had finished, after all if they could imprison a child, what else had they done? He didn't like the way his boy kept edging around this.

"Never left a bruise," Harry answered honestly, "knocked me around a bit, spanked me sure, but they never left a bruise." Harry felt like he was reassuring them while carefully wording his answer.

Lily dearly wanted to ask what the school must have thought, but she didn't think she could stand listening to whatever lie they would have told to keep Harry in there. Still none of the four were happy, James decided they had pressed enough for now. Harry was looking more and more likely to bolt from the room if they kept up this line of questioning.

"Why do we have to keep hearing about this?" Sirius sighed when details were provided of what Dudley was doing with his gifts, like running over neighbors. "I really don't want to keep hearing about that stupid little boy."

"Do I even need to ask?" Remus frowned, and honestly he didn't Harry Hunting sounded dismal in itself.

Harry shook his head and said, "Nah, they liked to chase me down, but they couldn't often catch me. I've always been pretty fast."

Lily sniffed and glanced about the room, finding irony in the fact that these boys were upset that Harry had been bullied, yet didn't even seem to realize they themselves were bullies. Now seeing the damage it could do to the victim, maybe the next time she brought it up they might actually understand.

"While going to that school would have been nice," James smiled, "being away from your horrid cousin and all, I am quite pleased that you will be going to Hogwarts instead."

"How do you know?" Harry couldn't help but ask. After all, would a wizarding school take someone who didn't even know they were a wizard?

"Did you not pay attention to all that accidental magic before?" Sirius demanded. "Of course we know you're going."

Harry instantly felt reassured and motioned for his father to go on.

"Why would going to public school be funny?" Lily asked, genuinely confused.

Remus shook his head in pained remembrance as he told her, "Because some people were raised to believe that anything lesser than them was meant to be laughed at."

All three boys tensed up at the schools supposed initiation via Dudleys comment, not wanting to start in on another round of bullying already.

While everyone laughed at the boy's wit Harry beamed with pride at remembering how long it had taken Dudley to figure it out and come after him. He hadn't even been punished for it.

"Ouch," Sirius winced. "Looks like you didn't get out of seeing her after all. Cabbages, bletch!"

"Oh," Sirius said, perking up at once. "Well then for once the little pup ought to have a good time."

The rest of the adults hadn't looked ready to believe Sirius until they read it for themselves, now they were all smiling and hoping for some inexplicable reason that Harry would spend the rest of his time there until school started. Sadly this idea was ruined the moment James continued reading.

Remus made exaggerated gagging noises with his throat while Lily grumbled under her breath, "Remind me to never complain about the school uniforms again."

James spluttered in disbelief but Lily sighed and stated, "Don't even start James. You know very well you cursed anyone you could get your wand on without being caught. It's the same basic principle with those sticks."

James looked slightly hurt but had no way to really deny this so let it go and moved on.

"Glad to know he looked as ridiculous as we thought," James chuckled. Sirius was fighting the impulse to comment on the baby name that had been used.

"What's that?" Remus asked, finding a tub of dirty rags a terrible omen for the start of something. Without looking up James kept reading.

Lily huffed and grumbled under her breath at the further use of that putrid phrase of not asking questions, but again James didn't bother pausing.

"What!" Everyone in the room yelped.

"Why are you so surprised?" Harry asked, genuinely confused. "The book already told you that they gave me Dudley's old clothes."

"It's just-" James started, then looked to the others who were all just as appalled that Harry wasn't more upset by this, "Just last night your cousin paraded around in a brand new uniform and now you're watching your Aunt tell you that they can't be bothered to get you clothes."

Harry merely shrugged, that's how it had always been, why would he be concerned with it now? It had already happened to him several years ago, and he was wearing clothes that fit him just fine now. The four exchanged looks and determined that they would have to have a serious talk with him about this later.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter at Harry's wit. "Brilliant, glad to see you don't take it all lying down."

"I can't decide if she's delusional enough to believe that, or just trying to stop Harry from saying anything else," Remus grumbled.

"The first one," James and Lily said at the same time.

"Lovely visual description, I quite like elephants," Sirius smiled.

"Wrinkled noses could only improve their appearances I'm sure," James muttered.

"Do I even want to know why he carries that around with him everywhere?" Lily sighed. No one answered her, they all knew the answer.

Sirius pretended to faint in shock while the others did look genuinely surprised at this, until Remus spoke up, "More of that pretending he doesn't exist thing, I'm sure. Referring to Dudley getting the mail means he gets to ignore Harry more."

"Really Remus," James sighed. "Can't you turn your brain off for five minutes and just be happy about something?"

"Not in my nature really," he said with a benign smile.

"Are you kidding me?" Lily yelped, snatching the book away from James to read that one for herself.

James let it go out of his slack grip, "You mean he actually encourages Dudley to beat on you?" he asked his son.

Harry simply shrugged, but chose not to answer that. So what if Uncle Vernon had, even if Dudley did it without his father's permission, he still wouldn't have gotten in trouble for it.

Gingerly taking the book back from his wife, James vowed to move that talk up to after this chapter was over, maybe even sooner if this didn't stop soon.

Remus and Sirius again winced at such a reminder that they were dead, that no one could ever write to Harry.

Lily and James felt their hearts break once again that something so common to a normal person would mean something so big to their child. How lonely a life and James still felt responsible for it all. He would have wanted to quit reading these books after the last chapter if not for one thing keeping him going. He hoped his son would find out what he had done to set Voldemort after his family, and right that wrong. Hopefully it wasn't too late.

He was so lost in thought that he hadn't realized how long the silence had drug on until Harry had nudged him gently in the side, a questioning look in his eyes. James threw him a quick smile before pressing on.

"Hey it's his Hogwarts letter!" James brightened up at once. "Please, please, tell me he goes waving that in front of his Aunt and Uncle and we get to read about them tripping over themselves to explain." The malice in his voice was obvious, as was the eagerness coloring his tone as he continued. He didn't even care in that moment he didn't know what a stamp was, just having recognized the standard paper of a wizard's letter.

"I don't get it," Sirius said, as the punchline of a letter bomb made no sense to him, "and I've heard some pretty lame, dumb jokes in my life."

Lily had a pained look on her face, "It's a reference to something in the muggle world that should not be made fun of. Just trust me on that one," she explained. Sirius shrugged and decided not to push it.

"Why would Dudley shout it like that?" James asked. "Is it really that odd for Harry to have something?"

"I suppose it's the way Harry reacted to it," Remus speculated.

All of the adults huffed in agitation at Harry's letter just being snatched away like that, but remained silent, wanting to hear the explosion they knew was coming. Lily in particular felt a vindictive pleasure, as Vernon might not understand right away what it was, but Petunia sure would.

Sirius grimaced in disgust, "I knew they bullied you, but did they always speak to you like that?" he demanded. Harry just shrugged, which was occurring far too often for their liking. Was he always so quiet because of the way he had been treated in his younger years?

"Well, he certainly knows what it is," Remus said. "Though I wonder why? Do you think Petunia would have told him the name of the school you went to, in preparation for this moment?"

"I suppose so," Lily said absentmindedly, thinking more of the satisfaction that was about to come. They would have to explain to Harry about his parents now.

"Really!" the other two marauders cried in shock.

"His violence extends to hitting his own parents?" Lily gasped; her disbelief evident on her face.

Sirius shook his head, "I would have thought he'd just whine some more."

"What gives Dudley the right?" James muttered.

"I'll doubt he can even read it to begin with," Sirius agreed with a sneer.

"While Harry has every right," Lily sighed, "and he'll probably be the last one to get to."

All four of the adults frowned at that, Vernon just telling them to get out and putting the letter away was not the reaction they had been expecting at all. Could they really continue hiding this from Harry?

When Remus voiced this question aloud, Lily said slowly, "No, I should think not. I know for a fact that when a muggle-born receives a Hogwarts letter a representative wizard will show up that day to explain and answer the Muggle's questions. However this is an interesting phenomenon. Harry is a wizard by blood but raised by Muggles who know about the magical world, so it was up to the family to discuss his magic." She paused for a moment, stomaching the bile that rose in her throat as she remembered all of the lies her sister had piled up. "The school knows if the child's letter doesn't reach its intended person, and the letters will continue coming in until they do. What the extent of that is, I have no idea."

After a poignant pause James finally asked, "How on earth do you know all of that?"

Lily snorted and finally came back to the present, having been lost in a few memories. "It's in Hogwarts a History, establishing how and why the students are selected and introduced into the school."

"Never bothered to read that one," Remus said with fond remembrance. "I preferred preparing for my classes rather than leisure reading. If I did want to read for fun it would always be fiction."

"Guys," Sirius whined when it became obvious this was going to become a full and lively discussion about reading of all things. "I am freely reading and listening to this book, but please don't make me sit here and listen to what you two did in your free time."

"You could do with a bit of extra reading Sirius," Lily snapped, rounding on him at once. "Maybe if you had cracked your school books open to use for more than a pillow-"

The following squabble was familiar enough that James and Remus began laughing, while Harry nudged his father again and asked, "Is this common around here?"

"What?" James asked, genuinely confused.

"They're arguing, but they don't seem to be mad about anything?" Harry asked, watching the two with keen interest, and a vague familiarity about two other people arguing a lot…

James felt a pang of sadness once again when he realized his little baby would never see these kinds of interaction for himself. "Yes Harry, those two often have lively debates with each other, but there's no real heat to them. They just enjoy provoking each other."

Harry nodded as he continued watching, but after a few more moments James cleared his throat loudly and waved the book in his hand around. "Do you suppose we could get back on topic?"

"You just completely ruined what I was saying James," Sirius grumbled, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall beside the fireplace, but did not stop James as he finally continued.

"Now there's a temper we haven't seen," Sirius chuckled lightly when Harry shouted for his letter.

"What!?" Lily, Remus, and Sirius all squawked, getting to their feet and looking as murderous as they had when they found out about the cupboard.

"I thought you said he never hurt you?" James growled, the book in his fist clenched so tightly it was in danger of ripping.

"I-er-he didn't," Harry said, looking at all of them genuinely confused, "it's not like it hurt," he explained gingerly.

"If he put his hands so easily on his own boy throwing you two in the hall like that-" Lily began.

"You think I'm lying!" Harry interrupted, feelings of hurt and anger beginning to boil. "I would have told you if he'd done anything worse." His anger managed to keep the shot of shame out of his voice that even though he had told the truth...there was still technically a lie by omission. None of them seemed that happy, but they all backed down, and sat back in their seats.

Harry was still feeling a touch hurt, so James told him gently, "We believe you Harry, we're just beginning to wonder how loosely you use the wording 'knocked around'." Harry just sighed, and waved his father to go on, feeling this didn't need to be discussed further. James disagreed, but was still eager to continue on.

"Inventive," Remus beamed at Harry consolation for not getting to look through the keyhole.

"Lily, if the school knew where he slept, wouldn't you think there would be an inquiry?" Remus asked, attempting to force a friendly tone into his voice instead of the growl he felt.

Lily pursed her lips in thought before shaking her head and saying, "No, 'fraid not. No one looks at where the letters are addressed, simply if they're muggle-born or not." The others all huffed at that, and now dearly hoped this was a situation where someone magical would come, see this travesty, and have Harry removed that day.

"Could they though?" James asked, a feeling of fear beginning to twist in his gut. "Could they tell them that I mean. Could they really stop Harry from going to school?"

Lily nearly broke skin over her lip as she worried it before finally answered in a quavering voice, "I suppose, yes they could. After all Hogwarts is not compulsory or mandatory in any way. It is optional for the family to send their student there."

The boys' mouths fell open in shock and horror at what this could mean. Sirius and James getting paler by the second as they looked on at the books in worry. If Harry didn't go to school, he wouldn't be able to get out of that house, wouldn't be able to properly learn magic. Could they really deal with seven books full of these horrible Dursleys?

After a brief bout of shock however, Remus shook himself and said sternly, "No, if they choose to do that, then the ministry will still make an appearance, find out why they choose otherwise, and someone will still find out about the way they treat Harry."

Everyone just turned to Harry, as if expecting an answer, but he simply shrugged and reminded them, "Hey, I'm as clueless as you guys, remember?" Only slightly reassured by Remus, James decided the easiest way to get his answer was to keep reading, rather than let his mind continue such dreadful thoughts.

"Dangerous!" Lily exclaimed. "Honestly Petunia, what have you told him?"

"Nothing good," Sirius grumbled, picking restlessly at the carpet.

General snorts of crude amusement arose as James demanded. "He fit when Vernon went to visit you in that thing?"

"Just his head," Harry laughed slightly, happy that he remembered this detail as they continued.

"Does he really think he's that stupid?" Remus demanded.

"Bet his own son would have fallen for a letter being addressed to the wrong person," Sirius snickered.

"Harsh," James winced at the letter being burned of all things.

"Hope he enjoyed that," Lily said viciously, knowing spiders falling on the mans head were only the beginning of his troubles.

"Hope it was," someone muttered, though really Harry felt it could have been any of them at this point for Vernon being in pain for something as simple as a smile.

"A bit big for it?" Lily said, looking faint. "When did you come to that conclusion? Before or after you realized it was illegal?" Harry put a reassuring hand on his mother's shoulder before asking his dad to go on, James conceded that there was nothing more to be said and continued.

Harry winced and Hickory tore out of the room in a fright at this new uproar of Dudley's second room. Yeah, maybe Harry should have mentioned that he remembered that bit. As before, he moved to each of them and tried his best to comfort them, but his attempts were getting weaker every time. There are only so many things he could have said before they all lost it and went out to commit homicide.

Finally, with a sense of regret he said, "Okay, promise me this, you won't go and leave this house because of anything in the books until after they're all done?" None of them were happy, but finally agreed they should learn all of the transgressions before the deserved murder. With a heavy heart James continued.

"Why are you questioning it?" Sirius demanded, fire still roaring through him.

"Oh I don't blame him for that," Remus snarled, "They've never done a single decent thing for him, why start now?" Sucking in air, as if slowly dying on the inside, James pressed on.

"Four!" was hissed mutinously around the room, but at the promise they had just made to their boy, no one did or said anything, though they were all thinking it.

They hadn't thought it could get worse, and were growing quite tired of being proved wrong, at this Sirius even resorted to begging. "Come on Harry, a second room for his crap, while you slept with the shoes! That is bad enough for whatever punishment." Harry pursed his lips but shook his head, instinctively knowing he didn't want anyone in this house to leave it any time soon.

"Hope it hurt," Remus huffed, knowing how much effort it took to break a television, though Dudley's weight would do most of the work.

After their previous outburst none of them even had the energy to comment on Dudley's spoiled brat behavior this time.

That was the final straw for Lily, hearing that her own son would rather be in a cupboard with a piece of mail had finally pushed Lily Potter into tears. All four boys freaked out initially, most of them never having seen such a woman cry, but at her tears, her baby became distressed as well and began putting up quite a fuss.

Lily made herself busy by going about and comforting him, then she got up and excused herself into the kitchen to fetch him a bottle, leaving him with Remus. She took far longer than was normal, but when she came back she was much more composed. Remus gave the boy back to his mother and Lily then told her husband to continue on.

Sirius let out a low throaty whistle, "and here I thought Regulus was spoiled. I can't imagine any child getting away with that."

"And I don't even need to ask if he was punished," Remus said with contempt.

"A first I'm sure," James muttered darkly, while Harry couldn't help but agree, he still couldn't imagine Vernon being nice to him.

"Why would he shout that?" Sirius laughed. "After the reaction it got yesterday, you'd think Dudley would have the sense to hide it and read it himself."

"Ah but you said the magic word Sirius," Remus reminded him, "sense, which he has none of."

Everybody laughed at this, and with a bit of a better mood, James read on.

"Throwing yourself onto someones neck takes guts," Sirius said with pride. "You'll be a Gryffindor for sure." Harry just blinked in confusion, having no idea what that could mean, but kept the question to himself. Lily frowned at him, feeling that brawling like that took more stupidity than guts.

"Rats!" James sighed, not surprised Harry had lost the struggle for the letter, just disappointed. He looked around expectantly again, and then frowned, still not used to his third friend not being present. He'd have to bring that up again if Peter wasn't back soon.

"Oh this can't be good," Sirius sighed, placing his face in his hands when he heard of his godson concocting a plan.

"I'm going to have to agree with Sirius on this one," Remus chuckled. "Remember our first prank? We had a lot to learn about plan making."

"Oh yeah," James laughed boyishly, "still a riot though." Now feeling quite eager to hear this he continued.

"Not a bad idea actually," Remus said with appreciation, "much more subtle than I would have given you credit for, just waiting around for the postman."

"Thanks, I think," Harry said, deciding to take that as a compliment.

"How did you manage to fix a broken alarm clock?" Lily asked in surprise, thinking he'd hardly be let around tools, or even having the knowledge at that age.

"I just filched some batteries from a working one of Dudley's," Harry shrugged. "He'd been too lazy to do it and just told his parents it was broken."

"Do they own a pet that hasn't been mentioned?" Sirius asked, wincing at such bad luck as Harry stepping on something alive on his way down the stairs.

While Lily groaned at indeed, such bad luck as Vernon's face being in the way, the other three laughed. Feeling quite pleased that Harry had this small victory.

"Pity he's not stupid as well as an arse," James sighed at Vernon sleeping in front of the stairs to stop his son.

"What good would nailing it shut do?" Lily asked frowning, "and how would they get their other post?"

"I was going to ask you," Sirius agreed it made no sense.

"Is that even how muggle post works?" James asked.

"Not at all," Remus shook his head at this absurdity.

Lily opened her mouth again but Sirius cut her off, "We know Lily, you just told us it wouldn't work. We're all aware of how stupid his logic is." She huffed and laid baby Harry's bottle down, beginning to put him on her shoulder and encouraging him to burp.

"She knows it won't work," Lily huffed under her breath, Petunia was well aware of magical post.

"Thank Merlin for that," James snapped at the book, he didn't want his mind to be anything like this mans!

"Is that how muggles use fruitcake?" Sirius asked with genuine confusion.

"No," Lily and Remus answered together. When neither elaborated, James continued.

"I think this poor bloke lost whatever sense he once had," Remus laughed and Sirius quickly joined in while Lily and James smiled vindictively at Vernon being reduced to jumping at small noises.

"Those poor people," Lily said sympathetically at Vernon yelling at random Muggles for his struggles, as baby Harry finally burped. "I'd just hang up on him."

"Points for originality, using a muggle machine like a food processor to get rid of the magical letters," Remus chuckled, still rather disgusted these two would go to such lengths to keep this from Harry.

"Why don't muggles get post on Sundays?" James asked curiously.

"That's what you're caught on?" Sirius demanded while holding his sides laughing. "Wonder if he puts jam on his bills?" Remus gave James a quick answer on Muggle post, enough to satisfy James to move on.

"Love the excess," Sirius snickered while James turned to Harry and demanded, "Why didn't you just pick one up from the ground?"

"They were mostly being aimed at Uncle Vernon and landing at his feet," Harry answered, smiling slightly as he remembered something a bit funny next, "and I'd rather not be within arm's reach of him. I was trying to catch the ones that were ricocheting away."

Good mood gone in an instance, Harry quickly reminded them that it didn't hurt when he'd again been thrown bodily into the hallway, and then practically pushed the book back into his father's face, wanting them to read about his funny memory.

Harry couldn't hold it in anymore and burst out laughing, after a few moments the others joined in. "He was very vain about his mustache, and he looked quite deranged with half of it missing. Looking back, it just seems funny."

"Going away where?" James asked. "Did they have a second house?"

"Doesn't matter where," Lily snickered, "they still can't outrun them!"

The four adults exchanged dark looks again at such a reminder that he was violent with his precious son, so it could possibly be worse with a boy he didn't even like.

"What exactly is he basing this on?" Remus asked, trying to work this out from Vernon's point of view.

"Don't do that Moony," James sighed without looking up.

"Do what?" he asked distantly.

"Try and think it through," Sirius told him with a straight face. "I don't want to see you going as bonkers as this fool." Remus sighed and decided to let it go for now.

"That is an inkling of what my boy's been through you prat," Lily huffed, not having any sympathy for this boy whining about not being aloud to play with his toys.

"What's a computer?" James couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Kind of like an interactive TV," Sirius offered, the idea fairly complicated for him to explain. James seemed satisfied enough, though still intrigued to see one of these in person.

"Harry's never going to figure it out," Sirius said primly with a goofy little smirk. He'd never considered what Muggleborns would think of getting letters like this.

"I didn't," Harry agreed. "Never in my wildest dreams would I have dreamed up something like this."

"That would be an odd sight," James grimaced at Vernon once again knocking Harry aside just to claim what was his sons. "Wish she'd reported it."

"Not odd enough I'm afraid," Remus sighed.

"What was Vernon looking for?" Sirius wondered at such seemingly random places.

"I have no idea," Harry answered honestly, "He never told us. As deserted a place as possible I suppose."

"How do you lock someone inside a car?" Lily snorted. "Dudley fine, but I suspect Harry knew you could simply get out."

"And go where?" Harry asked. "No, it was better I stayed." All of them looked rather heartbroken at this but James pressed on.

"Can't go more mad when he's already there," Sirius snarled to Dudley's comment.

"Oh dear," Lily moaned, rocking her baby from side to side fitfully.

"Something wrong Lily flower?" James asked hesitantly at such a tone, not that he was looking forward to hearing about this either, after all if they treated his boy like this on normal days, why would it change on his birthday?

When Lily said something similar and James had no way of comforting her he instead turned to Harry and practically pleaded, "How did your birthdays go?"

Harry grimaced; not really wanting to admit that they basically ignored the occasion, or gave him such awful gifts he'd rather they'd ignored it. He felt lucky he even knew when his birthday was. When the silence dragged on, James simply sighed and decided he'd have to get his answers from the book.

"Jeez, I'd have rather Harry lied to us," Remus snapped, not realizing his feelings could actually sink lower until they had with Harry's recounting of old birthdays.

"This can't be good," Sirius sighed pushing his hair out of his face, just for it to fall back again when he shook his head in trepidation of Vernon supposedly finding the perfect place.

Lily couldn't help but wonder if Vernon was perhaps going off of the old, and untrue, legend that wizards couldn't go across water?

"Sounds like Azkaban," James frowned, hating to think of his son in there. None of the others had ever been there, but they all shook slightly at the mention. Harry frowned and chalked this up as a question he'd like to ask later.

Lily pursed her lips, thinking of her Hare-Bear out in a storm, without any warming spells, possibly even without a jacket. She wouldn't put anything past the Dursleys at this point.

"Why was that place even built?" Remus demanded. "The Shrieking Shack sounds better!"

"I suppose it might have been more hospitable at some point," Lily mused, trying to think of a possibility.

"I would just love the irony if that used to be a wizarding house," Sirius smiled grimly.

"What makes you say that?" James asked curiously.

"Perfect place isn't it?" He explained, "Middle of nowhere, perfectly accessible to wizards, ratty on the outside, but a wizard could fix that up in a jiffy on the inside. I was hoping an old wizard couple used to live there, no family so it was left to shambles. I just like the irony." After mulling that over for a moment they all burst into laughter, though they would never know the answer to this, but they had to agree with him that this would indeed be lovely irony.

Everyone in the room was disgusted that a snack could be referred to as rations. None of them even wanted to think how long Vernon intended to stay there.

"Oh sure, just rub it in you-" James broke himself off and cursed under his breath a few moments about Vernon rubbing it in Harry's face now he didn't have those letters, before pressing on.

"Don't worry Harry; weather doesn't have much of an effect on us." Remus told him bracingly as he noticed how crestfallen Harry seemed to be getting. "It's been long enough that someone should have filed an inquiry by now as to why you haven't gotten your letters. I'm sure they'll be around soon."

He put special emphasis on this last word, for the rest of the rooms benefit.

"Very, very soon," Sirius hissed in disgust at the news of Harry's sleeping conditions in that place.

James entertained the notion for a moment of a wizard, wishfully him, storming through the door with a reasonable explanation of where he'd been, cursing all of those excuse for humans, and then taking his son far, far away from there. Lily and Remus had come to the conclusion that there wasn't much more they could do, due to Harry's promise, so after a pause they both told James to hurry up and get past this part.

When it looked like someone was about to pause this again, Harry simply spoke over them all that he was fine, and that he had a very good sense of Déjà vu over him. Something good was about to happen on this birthday. Feeling a mite more hopeful James hurried on.

"I can't decide if a roof caving in for warmth was supposed to be funny, sad, or suicidal?" Sirius asked.

"Go with the first one," Remus sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in agitation at such a description. Even he had never had it this bad and Remus had slept in some pretty bad places.

"I should hope so," James smiled happily at the thought of his son getting his letter when he returned to that place, hopefully they wouldn't have all magically vanished.

"I wouldn't do it," Lily grumbled. "The less of Dudley's company the better." In truth, she was projecting a lot of her hatred from the younger Marauders onto this boy, though even she had to admit they never got this bad.

"Boom?" The others asked in concern as James puzzled for a moment.

"Did the house actually cave in?!" Sirius yelped, going slightly bug eyed, picturing his pup under all of that horrid rubble. He was sure to survive, but it wasn't a pleasant thought.

"James, keep going," Remus pleaded, feeling concern mounting, what a thing to happen on Harry's eleventh birthday!

Lily on the other hand was eyeing her adult son, and the pleased smile on his face. He didn't look remotely concerned, the opposite in fact. Now she simply wanted James to keep going out of morbid curiosity. After shaking himself for a moment James read the last line of the chapter.

Sirius and Remus relaxed a bit, though James still looked concerned. "Who knocks and makes a 'boom' noise?"

"Well, keep going and we'll find out," Lily snapped.

"The chapters over," James said.

"Guess it's my turn then," Sirius groaned, dragging himself to his feet, but eagerly taking the book.

"Never thought I'd see the day Padfoot would take up a book willingly!" James laughed.

"If it's about my little pup you bet your wand I will," he stated primly, turning the page.


	5. THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS

Sirius turned to his obligated chapter and was fixing to start when Harry spoke up, "Hey Sirius."

He startled slightly, this was the first time Harry had addressed him directly, he seemed rather weary of him and Remus. Plus his Harry shouldn't be able to talk for at least a few more months, so it was quite startling. Still he smiled with pleasure and looked around at him, "Yeah?"

"What's with the nicknames?"

Sirius blinked. Then blinked again. Then cursed slightly as he cast his eyes towards Mooney. At school, they had plenty of reasonable explanations for their nicknames. However they had always intended to tell there Harry why, the truth.

However, with Harry's memories being shot, and only slowly coming back, who knew what kind of impressions he had gotten. Had he already heard about werewolves and had a negative opinion of them like most wizarding kind? He didn't think he could stand seeing Harry freak out over one of his best friends, however Harry had addressed him. Yet it was Remus' right to divulge this back story. Torn, and silent for too long, Remus answered for him, having come to much the same conclusion as the others, "That's got a back story Harry, and we'll explain later."

Harry frowned, not much appreciating this, as they seemed to constantly interrogate him and demand his whole truth answer's, but at the pained look on the man's face, he decided to let it go for now.

Seeing Harry's nod, Sirius quickly pressed on.

"Harry my boy," James said, clapping his son on the shoulder, "there are some things that don't need to be stated. Dudley saying something stupidly is one of them."

Harry laughed quietly while the others smiled at such an interaction between the two.

Lily and Remus frowned in annoyance, forestalling the question they knew was coming Remus spoke up, "A rifle is a muggle weapon, like using the confringo curse through a metal pipe."

"I can't believe he was planning on using that on someone, simply for trying to give Harry back his heritage, his life," Lily grumbled, her anger at the Dursley's continuing to grow with everything they did or said. It also didn't help that she was positive Vernon had attained that illegally, as muggle laws made it nearly impossible for the common citizen to even own a firearm.

There was an edge of unease as Sirius read that the next knock took the door right off its hinges, then he looked up and asked, "we are sure that this is a friendly wizard just there to give Harry his letter right? Not that many wizards would use such force to get into a muggle house."

The other three exchanged uneasy looks, but Harry leaned back into the couch, completely at ease. He felt no impending danger, and told Sirius as much, so he went on.

"Is that Hagrid?" James asked eagerly.

"Sounds right," Remus agreed, beaming as well.

"Hagrid," Harry said the name slowly and distinctly to himself. He had come across it in the first chapter and it had meant something to him, but now saying it aloud, he knew that name, but why? "I think I know him," he muttered, rubbing his temple in frustration.

"Keep reading Sirius," Lily instructed, switching baby Harry in her arms so that she was able to wrap one arm around her elder sons shoulders.

Lily couldn't help a slight smirk at the Dursleys cowering. Reflecting that the Dursleys would be terrified a stranger had come in like this, invited himself something to drink, and insulted their son all in one swoop. While this would normally be the height of rude, and could only make the Dursleys opinion of Hagrid equal to their feelings of Lily. Knowing what she did though, Lily was hoping this was only the beginning.

"Well there's are proof that it's Hagrid," Sirius said happily, at the point of Hagrid declaring he hadn't seen Harry since he was a baby. "Hagrid was the one who dropped you off at your Aunt and Uncles as a baby."

"Like the giant description wasn't enough for you?" Remus laughed.

"Thank Merlin," James said to the ceiling, "I've been wanting someone to tell Vernon to up since this whole thing started."

"Would a gun have even hurt him?" Sirius asked when Hagrid casually tossed it aside anyways. "With his tough skin and all?"

"I'm not sure," Remus said slowly, "we know his giant skin prevents most spells, but I'm not sure if he's ever tested it against muggle weapons."

"Hang on," Lily said, looking to all the boys in the room, "giant skin? What makes you say Hagrid's a giant?"

"Oh come off it Lil," James said, "smart as you are, you never figured out why Hagrid's as big as he is?"

Lily frowned at them all and stated, "I always thought he had an overdose of Rano Potion, the effects of which can't be magically fixed, at least as of today's standards."

Sirius snorted in disbelief, "Leave it to you to think a potion would do that to someone."

"Well what made you four think," Lily began hotly, but Harry cut her off and said;

"No, they're right."

All four turned to him wide eyed, and he quickly raised his hands up and said, "I don't know how or why, but I think they're right."

Lily deflated at once, grumbling under her breath about guesswork.

"That doesn't bother you, does it Lily," Remus asked cautiously. Lily had now known for months about his werewolf status, and though there had been no true fear from her even during her initial surprise, they hadn't really gone out of their way discussing it either, so he was treading carefully here.

Lily blinked once, then again before gaping and half shouting, "of course not," at Remus, which caused baby Harry in her arms to kick up quite a fuss.

In response Lily got up and handed over the baby to Remus, then bent down and whispered something in his ear before leaving him there. Remus seemed quite happy now and made quick work of calming down his little cub.

Harry watched the whole thing smiling and wondering if the adults even realized he already knew the truth, but Sirius was already moving on.

"That was so sweet," Lily smiled, clasping her hands with joy, "he didn't have to do get you a cake."

"Glad someone did," James muttered.

Lily frowned and wanted to reprimand Harry for asking a question rather than thanking Hagrid, even if the first had occurred to him, but Remus quickly jumped in with, "Just be happy the boy has any manners at all Lily, with his kind of upbringing."

"Yeah, I'll bet Dudley wouldn't have even thought to do that," Sirius agreed.

Lily nodded grudgingly before Sirius continued.

Harry suddenly groaned, clutching his head in pain as memory of Hagrid, his title, and where he worked was all returned.

"Harry," they all said in concern, both Lily and James placing a hand on him.

"I remember this," Harry groaned, "I can't remember, but I know I do..." he trailed off muttering for a bit before sitting back and saying, "please keep going Sirius, the more that comes the less odd I feel."

Still casting him concerned looks Sirius complied.

"I doubt they've got any brandy on hand," James frowned, hating to think if he was wrong and they had brought alcohol instead of anything else that was actually needed.

"Even if they had brought some, I doubt they'd offer it to him," Lily said.

"Hagrid's not supposed to do magic," Remus chuckled, while explaining to Harry for the shocked look of making fire magically appear, "though of course who could blame him in this instance."

"Why not?" Harry asked eagerly, thinking he knew the answer to this, and much like with Hagrid's occupation, when he found out the answer another piece of him would feel right again.

"We don't know," Sirius sighed sadly, "we tried all sorts of things to get him to tell us, even got him snockered one night-"

"Sirius!" Lily said loudly, though Sirius kept going, "-but he never told us. Quite disappointing really."

Harry frowned in disappointment but encouraged Sirius to go on none the less, hoping they would find out soon.

Harry's lips twitched for a moment, feeling there was a significance to a pig for some reason, but remained quiet all the same, sure those sausages were just coincidence.

"Really?" Remus sighed sadly. "Does Vernon think they're poisoned, telling someone not to eat them?"

"I would like to reiterate that we are just lucky Harry has any manners," Sirius stated.

James smiled sadly to himself, thinking privately that this was most likely the first time in his son's life someone had thought of him first. He resolved that he would have to find some way to thank Hagrid for this.

Remus chuckled darkly all of a sudden, causing Lily and Harry to look at him curiously, so he was quick to explain himself, "If there's one thing Hagrid loves most in the world it's his job at Hogwarts, and if there's one man he respect the most, it would be Dumbledore. For these Dursley's to not have told you Harry anything about it, oh Hagrid's going to lose his temper on them."

James suddenly smiled, thinking that this couldn't have worked out better, and that if there was any justice Hagrid would deliver it.

Sirius came to the same conclusion and read on eagerly.

"Why would you apologize?" Lily asked, "It's not as if it's your fault."

Harry merely shrugged, knowing that the quickest way to soothe someone's temper was to apologize and admit it was your own fault, however he didn't think any of them wanted to hear him say that.

James and Remus leaned in eagerly, and Sirius was practically bouncing in anticipation for Hagrid's temper rising the more he heard what Harry hadn't heard.

"To be fair," Harry defended himself as his parents threw him sympathetic looks for his confusion about his ignorance, "taking that out of context, how was I supposed to know?"

"It's alright Harry, you will know soon enough," Sirius laughed.

"But I already know," he answered, now looking a bit confused.

"I mean in the book," then when he received strange looks, he just decided to press on.

"Curse them Hagrid," James muttered, "curse them into oblivion and I'll leave you all the gold in my vault."

Lily shook her head from side to side, "got to give Vernon some points, that took a bit of bravery still standing his ground against Hagrid."

"Lily dear," Remus said solemnly, "I learned quite a bit in my seven years at school, one of which was that there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Vernon just crossed that line."

"You can't control the world like you try to on Harry," James said in disgust when Vernon continued to try and forbid Hagrid telling Harry.

"Afraid all your nasty secrets are coming back at you," venom dripped from Lily's voice as she hissed under her breath all about Petunia's dramatics.

All three boys cracked up laughing. Lily told them all to hush before turning to Harry and saying, "a very reasonable answer to the deceleration of being called a wizard, I assure you."

Still feeling a bit bashful, Harry appreciated his Mum's attempt all the same.

"Oh," James deflated at once, "that's it. I was hoping Hagrid would do much worse than shout at them."

Sirius, Remus, and Lily looked disappointed as well, but Harry felt like this conversation was far from over, something else was going to happen he just knew it, so he encouraged Sirius to continue.

"High time," Sirius muttered, while Lily and James felt a sense of loss, knowing they should have been there when their boy opened his letter.

Remus frowned as he asked, "Hut on the Rock?"

"The Sea?" Sirius reread, ignoring the part that made him see red.

"That is odd," Lily admitted, "normally those letters are absurdly specific, why is it so vague this time?"

"Maybe it was because it was hand delivered this time," Remus offered. "I've never known one to be, so perhaps the magic of it wasn't needed as much that time," Remus used the only explanation that came to mind.

"Where were you anyways?" James asked Harry curiously.

"I've no idea honestly," Harry answered, "it's not like they told me."

Again all three boys burst out laughing at that.

After Sirius settled a bit he asked, "You've just found out you're a wizard, read a letter like that, and that's your first question?"

"It's a fair question," Lily defended her son, "after all the deadline was that day, and that is quite a bit odd to someone who's never heard it before."

The others only looked a mite shamed for taking the mickey out of Harry, but Sirius decided to keep going before Lily got to mad at their picking.

Harry frowned, looking concerned, "is that safe for the owl? Being in someones pocket like that."

"So sweet," Lily said smiling at him, "but yes of course, it's probably one of the school owls, and I'm positive he put cushioning charms and engorgement charms on his pockets. I'm sure the poor thing had plenty of room to breathe."

"A real accomplishment that, reading anything of his upside down," Remus chuckled, "since his handwriting isn't exactly legible right side up."

"What's a telephone?" James asked curiously.

"I showed you one when you came round to my place," Remus told him, "it's that thing on the wall you asked about."

"Oh yeah," James said, then frowned, "you called it a landline right? And you said you could talk to people a long ways off without an owl, but you didn't explain how it worked."

"That my friend, would take far too long," Remus chuckled.

"He's so innocent," Sirius said sadly, "I feel ashamed he doesn't know better. What's a muggle, honestly, I'm surprised Muggles don't know that's what we call them."

Lily rolled her eyes at him.

"Stamp it out?" James repeated furiously. "Does he even realize what that can do to a wizard, to try and force them not to use their magic like that?!"

"But I am fine," Harry said quickly, before another outburst could occur, "and they never did anything more than what you've read."

"Still not right," they all muttered darkly.

Sirius shook his head as if trying to get water out of his ears, he hated having to say all that stuff about Lily, even through Petunia, but instead asked, "you were doing magic at home?"

Lily nodded distractedly, she had known her sister had disliked her use of magic, calling it unnatural, but she had no idea it had been pent up for this long. Then again, it explained the horrid way her son was now being treated. Treating her baby like this because of the way she was, it made her want to vomit as she realized her son's condition was all her fault.

As the silence dragged on and Lily didn't answer, Remus jumped in, without taking his eyes off of Lily, "yes, muggle-borns are allowed to do magic there first two days back home, to prove that they are learning magic at school."

"Lily?" James said softly, reaching around Harry to place his hand gently on his wife's shoulder.

She blinked a few times, clearly distracted, and said in a vacant voice, "Yes dear, Sirius please go on."

Sirius gave James and Remus concerned looks, but decided to do as asked.

Lily pressed a shaking hand to her mouth when Petunia just kept going, but when Sirius made as if to stop again she blurted out, "keep going, I want to hear what all she says."

Looking very concerned by this point, James decided to agree with Lily, for now.

Lily went pale as a sheet, and seemed either about to vomit, faint, or burst into tears at any given moment when finally her sister seemed done.

"Mum?" Harry spoke softly, and was also the first to speak up.

Suddenly bursting into tears, she threw her arms around her only child, technically anyways, and began apologizing incessantly about how sorry she was, and this was all her fault.

Harry simply sat there, looking frozen and almost fearful, until James got up and went around to her side of the couch. Sitting down on the armrest, he gently pried Lily off of Harry and whispered quietly in her ear for a moment. Lily nodded distractedly for a bit, before Harry finally came out of his shock and spoke up, "I don't blame you."

Lily brushed tears out of her eyes and gave him a watery smile, but Harry kept going before she could speak, "really, it's not your fault how she treated me. You couldn't have known, and it's not like you left me to their care on purpose."

She sighed, still looking relatively unconvinced, when Sirius spoke up from the floor, "Look at it this way Lil, we are going to fix this, stop it from happening if it's the last thing I do."

Remus shot Sirius a dark look, warning him that he didn't appreciate that kind of declaration before speaking up, "it is going to be alright Lily. Look at your boy now, despite all of that, he doesn't seem to be any the worse for wear," not one hundred percent true, but he was trying for comfort here.

Lily sighed and nodded, squeezed both of her boy's hands and then said softly, "yes, I know. Please let's just keep going."

It was clear that she didn't completely agree with them, that she still blamed herself, but if she didn't want to talk about it then there wasn't a force on earth that could change her mind.

"Finally," Sirius crowed, "I'm so glad you told Hagrid that Harry. Let's hope Hagrid does a bit more then yell at them for that lie."

"Rats," James muttered snapping his finger, if only Harry had waited a few more moments to ask that and derail Hagrid from his anger. He did not want to go back to hearing more about this Boy Who Lived nonsense.

"That would be kind of odd," Remus agreed, Harry couldn't be the only person who didn't know about Harry Potter at school.

"Wish he'd do more than throw dirty looks," Sirius muttered darkly.

"It's amazing really, so many even now Voldemort's name," James sighed "considering so many people hate saying it to begin with."

"Well, if they didn't know his name, then calling him You-Know-Who would have just been stupid," Lily reasoned.

"I still think it's just stupid," Sirius grumbled.

"I hope Hagrid does tell you," Remus said sadly, "I'd hate for you to hear it some other way."

'We should have been the ones to tell him' Lily thought sadly.

"Well it's a start," James chuckled when Hagrid stuttered through the pronunciation.

"Kind of odd hearing about this past tense," Sirius said, mostly to himself.

"Kind of nice though too," Remus said wishfully.

"Voldemort and everyone knows James and Lily aren't changing sides," Remus said with pride.

Sirius remained quiet, hating to think that his little brother had been dragged into that mess, wondering if he had come out of it, wondering if he was involved in the death of his best friend.

Lily and James locked eyes, knowing that if it was the choice of dying, along with their newborn child, or joining Voldemort, their death now made sense.

Halloween was whispered throughout the room, every occupant going as pale as death upon Hagrid giving this a time frame.

"That's at the end of this month," Sirius' voice barely came above a whisper as he looked to the two parents who were looking at each other in a way he'd never seen.

"That's so close," Remus muttered, clutching the baby in his arms slightly tighter to himself.

"So soon," Lily whimpered, while James tightened his hold on her.

"A year old!" James yelped when Sirius had kept going with determination.

"So it's not until Halloween next year," Lily let loose a breath, that year suddenly feeling like a lifetime.

"More than enough time to come up with a plan," Remus reassured them all.

"It's okay Sirius," Lily said gently, when it became obvious he didn't want to say Voldemort's full plan of coming to them, "we're not going to let it happen."

"I know," he snapped, a little more viciously than intended, "Hagrid's the one that couldn't get the words out." Looking slightly hurt, but also a bit warmed, Sirius mumbled a quick apology before hurrying on.

"Definitely need to go by and see Hagrid again," James vowed aloud when Hagrid only had good things to say about the Potters.

"Count me in for that," the other three agreed.

"Hum," Lily murmured, "we must have had time to place some sort of protective charm on Harry for this to have occurred."

"I can't think of any that would hold off that kind of curse," James offered.

"I know this," Harry muttered, rubbing at his forehead again, "I know the bloody answer to this."

"Well when you remember do please let us know," Remus said, looking intrigued, "It could be used to save our lives."

"Don't pressure the kid Moony," Sirius slightly chuckled, "I'm sure if he knows, he must have found out at some point during all of this," and he waved the book in his hand and at all the others before continuing.

"Remember those names" Lily said softly, "we need to warn them as well."

"Those were all members of the Order," Sirius said sadly.

"Those have some pretty big family's," Remus observed, "Wish Hagrid had been more specific if it's just the members of the Order, or their entire family or," and here he stopped and trailed off into muttering.

"I don't need to remember that pain," Harry muttered. At eleven hearing all of this for the first time, now his head ache was beginning to lessen a bit, but still quite painful. He hoped that gaining back more of his memories wouldn't be quite this bad.

"I sincerely doubt you remember that," Lily shivered, "just your subconscious mind trying to visualize what happened."

Harry shrugged, hoping that he really didn't remember that any green light or high cruel laughter ever.

"Wish those Dursleys would just leave," Sirius grumbled.

"How is a beating ever the answer," Lily cried, nearly lunging to her feet in rage.

"I'd like to give him a good beating," James snarled.

"You are so lucky I keep my word Dursley," Sirius snapped, looking about ready to toss the book into the fire.

Remus simply rocked the baby in his arms around a bit, trying to comfort himself with the knowledge that this hadn't happened yet, that this baby was fine.

Harry looked around at all of them, half smiling with love at their reactions, half afraid of what they really were going to do when things were all said and done.

"Only in your twisted world were they weridos," Remus growled.

"If he keeps going about you two..." Sirius hissed, growing a bit paler with every word he read, then sucking in a deep breath forcing himself to continue.

"Accio!" Lily cried suddenly as Sirius really did look like he was about to chuck the book into the fire.

"That-" Sirius began swearing violently.

"He's speaking ill of the dead, to our son Lily," James said with a look of disgust, probably from referring to himself as dead.

"I still don't want him toasting this," Lily snapped, just as angry at being insulted like this in front of her child, but not willing to take it out on the book. When it looked as if Lily were about to continue the chapter, Sirius strode over and plucked it from her grasp.

After a brief glaring contest Sirius vowed, "I promise I won't try to burn this book again."

When Lily still held his gaze he continued, "or in any way try to destroy it."

Releasing her breath she sat back into the couch and Sirius went back to his place at the hearth before reading.

"Sirius, you sound ridiculous biting your tongue and reading," Remus said sadly.

"Yes well it's that or nothing," he said while spitting a bit of blood into the fire place and continuing.

"Yes!" All four cheered, all malice gone from Sirius' voice as he now eagerly continued to Hagrid pulling his umbrella on them!

"Oh come on," James slumped back.

"Oh he will say one more word," Remus vowed, "I'd put money on that."

"Hopefully soon," Sirius huffed.

Lily snickered quietly to herself at such a sentence, as giant and umbrella appearing together with the threat of being speared hung over Vernon, relieving a bit more tension in the room.

"Still nice to think Voldemort's really gone, even if Hagrid doesn't believe it," Sirius sighed.

"So what," Lily asked in confusion, "he doesn't believe he's dead, but he doesn't believe he's still out there? He can't be both. Even if he was a ghost he would still technically be in one of those two categories."

"I'm not sure," Remus said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, "there are areas of Dark Magic no decent wizard has even looked at, but as we all know Voldemort's as dark as they go. It really is unpredictable what could have happened to him that night."

"I'm voting for died," James said darkly, not wanting to think too long on it.

Sirius didn't want to think what Voldemort would do if he really wasn't dead, so he decided to read on.

All of the adults shivered in disgust, not wanting to think who Voldemort would come after if he ever did come back. Yet Harry was here, fully grown and healthy, so they felt safe in assuming that Voldemort did indeed die.

"Thanks for the awful reminder of what all the Dursleys did to you," James said darkly, like he could actually forget that.

Harry gave him a muttered apology, he'd been thinking through a lot at the end of Hagrid's tale.

"If only you'd managed to turn them into toads," Remus snapped in disgust.

"Magic doesn't work like that," Lily said sadly, suddenly wishing that it did, if only so Harry could have gotten out of Dudley's foot for one moment.

"With your looks kid, not much of a mistake to make," Sirius laughed.

Harry blushed faintly as he again looked to his dad, still reeling from the experience at all, and unlike at that age he was quite relived Hagrid had made no mistake if it had gotten him here now.

"All excellent examples of the good uses of magic," James beamed.

Lily smacked him lightly, but privately agreed, though thinking he should have never had to be in those situations.

"I wish you had told Hagrid about those moments Harry," Remus said sadly, "Hagrid would have taken you out of there faster than you can say Merlin."

"Wait for it," Sirius said with a bit of hope, "he still might."

"Yes!" James pumped his fist in the air as if he'd just won a Quidditch match. "If Vernon insulting Dumbledore doesn't get a reaction out of Hagrid nothing will."

"He's going to deserve every moment of it to," Remus said with a dark smile on his face.

Lily was practically vibrating, wanting to hear what had happened, and Sirius was quick to comply.

"Thank you Merlin!" Sirius crowd, tossing the book into the air in celebration.

"Thank you Hagrid!" James corrected, hugging Lily and Harry to him with almost as much joy as when Harry had first been born.

"High time that lot got some comeuppance," Remus agreed, bouncing the toddler in his arms around and making the baby giggle, joining in on the euphoric mood.

"Oh I hope he tried turning Petunia and Vernon into pig's as well," Lily said vengefully, feeling it was a small price for the way her baby had been raised.

Sirius leaned over to where the book had landed and quickly found his place again.

"Aww," Sirius groaned after reading they'd just made a run for it, "I suppose it's too much to ask he goes after the lot."

"I don't think so," Harry said, still laughing slightly at all of their reactions.

"Rats," all three boys muttered, while Lily privately thought about how they were going to go about explaining the tail to other muggles. She was positive Hagrid wasn't going to remove it, so that was a small amount of punishment.

"You should have lost your temper a long time ago," Sirius said as if to Hagrid, still slightly laughing.

"He would have if Harry had told him everything we know," Remus agreed.

James actually applauded Hagrid for even his unfulfilled attempt at only getting one body part of Dudley into a pig instead of the whole thing, while Lily reached over and shoved him off of the arm rest. Even landing on the floor he was still laughing, and after a few brief moments, he and his friends settled down enough that Sirius kept going while James got up and retook his earlier position on Harry's other side.

"I'm sending Hagrid a thank you note," Remus said gleefully, "and I'm thinking about teaching him the proper way to do that spell."

"I'll help with that," Sirius cackled.

Lily and James were privately hoping that Hagrid would never have to use that spell, but didn't begrudge the two either.

James snorted a bit, "Like he's going to answer you why he can't do magic when you ask like that."

"Yeah Harry, don't you remember the whole 'tried getting him drunk and it didn't work' bit?" Sirius asked.

"Well I didn't know that then," Harry told him exasperatedly.

Ignoring the strange looks he was receiving Sirius tried to finish the chapter. **.**

Remus gave a low whistle, "wow Harry, he must really like you, we never even got the year he was exeplled out of him."

"Well it is a private matter," Lily scolded, "I wouldn't want to go boasting about being expelled either."

"Blunt much," James laughed at his son actually outright asking why he'd been expelled.

"Like you were ever any better," Lily reminded him.

"Subtle," Remus snickered.

"Like you were any better," Sirius mocked while still laughing, "exactly how many times did you use your mum as an excuse to sneak off again?"

"Thirteen by my count" James input.

Remus was about to counter when Harry asked, "Why were you sneaking off?"

All four paled and deflated at once, wanting to bite their tongues for, again, foolishly forgetting Harry didn't know. It was just so easy for them to forget, since they had never intended to hide anything in this house.

"Er," Remus started lamely when James said, a little too loudly, "How about we explain later."

Harry frowned severely at them, wanting to stop what he felt was just silly, "I've told you guys things I'd rather not, why's this different?" He almost added on that he already knew anyways, but then Sirius said, "Look pup, the chapters almost over, then," he threw Remus a sideways look, and waited for him to nod before continuing, "then we'll explain alright?"

Harry nodded and they all remained silent as Sirius finally finished.

Sirius closed the book and then threw a world weary look at Remus, who sucked in a deep breath, and then began to explain.


	6. DIAGON ALLEY

"Harry, I don't know what all you remember so far-" Remus began.

"Basically what you've read is all." Harry said sadly, eyeing Remus curiously. He looked like he was about to vomit, but at his words the man relaxed slightly.

"Well the nicknames and the sneaking off at school, it relates to me." He said slowly watching him very carefully.

"And the werewolf thing?" Harry interrupted again. He wasn't sure why, but he had a feeling this was a very heavy matter to Remus, and he'd decided to put up right now he had no concern with it.

"Wha-how," he tried, not even to protest as his instincts wanted, but unable to grasp how Harry had so easily said this more than anything.

"You mentioned it a little earlier," Harry said, looking about the room to the others who all looked just as stunned. "I didn't think much of it at the time. Why would I?"

Remus blinked spastically for several moments before shaking his head and finally letting out a weak chuckle and saying, "Yes well, I guess I never had bothered to censor myself around my friends."

Harry grinned at him and then prompted, "So the nicknames? What does that have to do with sneaking off?"

"How about this," Lily said when it was clear Remus was still shifting uncomfortably even if he was going to answer. She wanted to give him a moment, or more, to collect his thoughts so she offered, "It really is a rather long story. How about we read two more chapters then stop for the night?" She looked around at all of the boys in the room in a rather maternal way. "It's been a long, exhausting day for all of us. Hopefully by then we'll be at a good stopping place. We can get some rest, and then before we continue Remus can tell you the whole story."

Harry nodded, accepting this rather glumly as yet another feeling swept through him. He felt he knew this story, had heard it once before. But like everything else when he tried to dig for the memory a sharp pain was all he got.

The people on the couch were suddenly startled as Sirius called from the fireplace, "Heads up you two." He said as he chucked the books their way.

Harry instinctively ducked, while James reacted by catching it, then snapped. "What the hell was that for?"

"Well it's one of you two's turn," Sirius said brightly. "I figured who ever got hold of it would have to read next."

"That's absurd," Lily glared at him. "What if you'd hit one of us?"

"Come on Lily," Sirius sighed, "I was a beater; I do have better aim than that."

"It's my turn anyways you nitwit," Remus rolled his eyes, assuming they were going in the order they'd first started.

"It's fine," James chuckled, flipping to the correct chapter, "I've already got it, so I'll read."

"Harry, really?" Remus chuckled, "I don't think anyone has that kind of imagination, even as a dream."

"I once had a dream that I was abducted by mermaids," Lily told them with a shrug. "Surely you've had strange dreams."

"What's this have to do with mermaids?" Sirius frowned.

"I think we're getting just a bit off topic huh?" Then he kept going to ignore the glare.

"Who can blame you," James agreed. "I'd dream about escaping that place as well."

"The best morning of my life really," Harry smiled at now having such a good memory to look on.

The others all grimaced slightly at that, finding this more than depressing. Harry on the other hand seemed in such a good mood that none of them wished to ruin it.

Sirius laughed at the bird snapping at Harry. "I remember one time I tried to get away with not paying the owl, bloody thing left scratches on my arms for weeks."

"Why would you do that?" Lily asked, genuinely curious.

"Wanted to see what would happen," he answered honestly.

"Of course you did!" Remus said to the ceiling, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Go digging through his pockets for coins is the opposite of descriptive." Lily said, thinking about all the things Hagrid had already pulled out of those pockets.

"Strange looking?" James asked when Harry tried to describe currency he'd grown up with.

"I've showed you muggle money James," Lily reminded him. "Does it look anything like wizard money?"

"Fair enough," James sighed.

All four again flinched, hating Harry's ignorance and seeing it almost as a sign of their failure. They knew the longer this went on, the worse this feeling would get.

Sirius snorted, "If he was just going to get up why did he make Harry do that?"

"To teach him I suppose," Remus supplied.

"Right," James drew out the word in disbelief.

"Right," James said, nodding sadly. "Harry won't know about the vault then?"

"Vault," Harry asked curiously.

Both Lily and Remus opened there mouths but Sirius butted in first, "I am positive Hagrid is about to explain." James read ahead a bit and then agreed, so read out loud.

"Why would you think they kept their money in their house?" Remus asked. "Even muggles don't do that."

Harry thought back and answered, "Well Hagrid had that money on him. I suppose I was thinking more about how wizards had a way to keep bunches of money on them."

Sirius chuckled and said, "Ah, ignorance really is bliss eh?"

Frowning severely at him, Lily looked about to tell Sirius off for this, but James was already reading again.

"Knows Hagrid can protect things," Sirius disagreed with Hagrid's statement about Dumbledore sending him to do these things.

"Come now Sirius," Remus frowned at him. "Hagrid has proved to be very trustworthy."

"Oh I'm not disagreeing with that," Sirius quickly explained. "I'm just saying Hagrid is the opposite of subtle. If Dumbledore needed something done, secretly important I mean-"

"Not the point right now," Lily interrupted the two.

"I guess Hagrid couldn't apparate," Remus said thoughtfully to Harry's confusion of Hagrid 'flying' anywhere. "Without a proper wand and all."

"Don't think any kind of model broom would hold him." James said, running his hand through his hair in thought.

"Thestrals!" Lily and Sirius said at the same time.

"What?" The other three all said at the same time.

Sirius was grinning wickedly at Lily while saying, "Remus, remember our care of Magical creatures class, Professor Kettleburn mentioned the Thestrals that roam the grounds. I do believe he mentioned something about them having been raised by Hagrid."

"Oh that's right," Remus agreed, smiling now. "Though I find it hard to believe that you remembered that and I didn't."

"Always liked magical creatures," Sirius said primly, while eyeing Remus with a devilish smirk.

Lily said loudly to Harry, before a familiar round could start. "Thestrals are magical creatures that can carry immensely heavy loads. It's not out of the realm that Hagrid could have used one to get to Harry, and then sent it back to the castle."

"But how are they going to get off the rock?" James asked.

"Well you have the book," Remus said, still eyeing Sirius as if he was about to chuck something at him, though with the baby still in his arms his options were limited, "you tell us."

"Bummer," Sirius sighed, he couldn't imagine having to go without using magic, he'd never had to.

Lily chuckled and agreed, "Picturing Hagrid flapping his arms about, yeah I can't imagine that much either."

Now all five of them were chuckling, none of them blaming Hagrid one bit. One of the drawbacks to constantly having magic was a bit of an impatient side, so they couldn't blame him for wanting to 'speed things along.'

Lily blinked several times in shock, "I've never heard there were dragons down in Gringotts."

"It's true," Sirius and Harry said at once, and then gave each other startled looks.

"How would you know?" James asked him curiously, "my vault isn't that far down."

"I, err-" Harry muttered rubbing his temple again in frustration. He'd had only a brief moment of being sure that was right, now it was gone as quick as it had come. "I've no idea," he finally admitted in frustration.

Still frowning in concern at Harry, Sirius answered, "Well my cousin, Bellatrix, her vault is that far down. We don't get on much anymore, but when I was a lot younger I went with her and her family to Diagon Alley, we had to ride down there. Poor beasts, they weren't any happier to be down there then I was."

"You mean to tell me, there are dragons underneath Diagon Alley?" Lily yelped, looking suddenly fearful. "How on earth are they kept down there?" She frowned in concern.

Sirius frowned as he thought back, "Um, they were chained up, but they used these things to keep them back. Honestly I stayed in the cart, so I can't give too much detail."

"Is that even legal?" James demanded, now frowning in anger.

"How should I know?" Sirius threw his hands up in surrender, while all eyes turned to Remus.

Remus frowned while rubbing his jaw before answering thoughtfully. "If the Goblins purchased the dragon legally, then by their right they can technically do whatever they wish to it, so long as it's being fed properly. The Ministry doesn't have much control, or say over what Goblins do."

They were all frowning by the end of this, while Lily huffed, "That still doesn't make it right."

James reached over and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder before saying, "Well, you are in the Magical Law division, I have high expectations you'll have something to say about this then."

Lily nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly, before James went on.

James turned to Harry and said with the sternest face any of them had ever seen, "Rule number one for the rest of your life, forget anything and everything those Dursleys ever taught you."

"Especially about interrupting us reading anything," Sirius tacked on like he thought that wasn't obvious enough.

Harry gave them a slight nod, not bothering to correct that this rule was already a moot point no matter how you looked at it.

"You didn't ask about that now?" Remus asked Harry, trying not to be accusing as it must be easier for him to ask Hagrid, one man, about a Ministry rather than four people at once.

"Honestly, I've just learned to let you guys talk, and pick it up as I go along," Harry laughed.

Lily shook her head and said, "Remember what your father just said? If you have a question, please speak up."

Harry looked around at all of them, before nodding sagely, promising to remember that. "Guess I shouldn't bother asking what the ministry is again though?" He asked, as he looked at the book, "Since Hagrid's most likely fixing to say." James nodded and decided to keep going.

"Really," all four adults said in genuine surprise at the news Cornelius Fudge made Minister.

"Here I thought Crouch was a shoe in," Sirius said in surprise.

"Well I'm happy that he didn't anyways," Lily said brightly. "I find his methods, almost medieval."

"Oh come now Lily," James said, frowning at her, "he's strict, and he feels that's the only way to get through and show people there's still a ministry at all." Lily shrugged, she wasn't taking it back.

Despite what Harry had just promised, he smothered the question of who Crouch was, as he had an inkling he should know that name himself, but he still didn't feel up to asking them for such details.

James suddenly let out a rather vindictive snort, causing Lily to look at him in concern and ask, "What on earth was that for?"

Answering with glee, but without looking up he responded, "I would like to briefly point out that it in no place does it say that the boat made its way back to that rock."

While Lily had a sneaking suspicion that Hagrid must have put a charm on the boat for it to return to the island, which Harry may not have noticed it floating back out. After a moment the others all burst into dark laughter as well, but James quickly decided to press on, knowing his luck wasn't so good and that those Dursleys would be trapped there forever.

"Well that wasn't much of an explanation," Remus pointed out when it became clear that Hagrid wasn't going to continue explaining anymore about the Ministry.

"It's fine for now," Harry said quickly, simply wanting his father to keep going. He felt no real feelings towards any ministry, so he didn't find it too important to learn about right this moment.

"He'd like a dragon?" They said in shock.

"Why?" Lily gaped, "They're completely unmanageable." Remus simply shrugged, finding it as odd as everyone else.

"Suppose that would be a sight," Lily said, smiling to herself at the image of Hagrid with knitting supplies.

"You can always tell a lot about the teachers you're going to have by the books," Sirius said sadly.

"And judging by the few new ones, Harry should have a few interesting teachers," Remus agreed.

"We know that there's going to be a new Defence teacher," Lily agreed thoughtfully. "Do you think any of the other teachers would have changed?"

"Won't know until he gets there then," James pointed out, honestly hoping not, as he'd enjoyed the majority of all his teachers.

"Remember Barney, he brought his newt all seven years, and no one said a word," Sirius laughed in response to the reminder of what pets you could bring.

"You would think they would enforce that pet policy a bit more," Remus agreed.

"Which is a horrid rule," James grumbled, "first years should be allowed to join the Quidditch team if they choose."

"They're supposed to be focusing on their school work," Lily disagreed.

"You could apply that to all seven years then," Sirius said, siding with James on that.

"What's Quidditch?" Harry butted in, before the argument continued further.

James and Sirius looked faint all of a sudden, never having thought such words could come from any person's mouth, let alone their Marauder Junior. Before either boy could jump and go into absurd detail Remus gave Harry a quick general idea of it. When he was done Lily smiled at him and said, "Thank you Remus. If we'd let these two answer, we'd be here for hours."

"But he didn't even mention-" James began at once, but Lily cut him off with a firm glare and said, "you can go on all you like later dear, for now how about we keep going on this." Sirius and James shared exasperated looks, but James decided to agree, for now.

"It is quite a lot to take in," Lily agreed with Harry's still lingering disbelief to all this, remembering back to her first time, wishing with all she had she'd been the one with Harry at this moment.

All three boys gave derisive snorts at the idea this was all a Dursley joke, then Sirius growled, "Please, those three wouldn't know a joke if it bit them in the-"

"Language," Lily reprimanded at once.

"Oh please Lily," James sighed, "Sirius has been talking like that this whole time."

Lily frowned severely at them both before reminding them, "There is still a child in the room, and I don't want him to be growing up around that kind of talk. Now I can't stop you every time, but I will for the minor things." Huffing and grumbling, both boys agreed, it wasn't worth the argument right now.

"Maybe it's because Hagrid is a trustworthy person," Remus said frowning at the idea of Harry's trust in Hagrid being so new to him, "and you're not used to being around that kind."

Harry gave him a sad smile, not really wanting to agree, but not disagreeing either before pointing out, "I am now."

Feeling a bit warmed, James continued.

"Muggles can't see it," Lily explained for him, "it's magically protected that way."

"That's part of its charm though, being dark and shabby," Sirius laughed, having gotten drunk a fair few times in that place.

"I just love the way you describe people," James laughed, never having thought of Tom with a walnut head.

All four adults frowned at the reaction Harry entering got, having recognized in the first chapter that this was the reason that Harry had been kept away from most magical folk, but still not liking this attitude much.

"Jeez, pushy much," Sirius said frowning; suddenly wishing he was there to keep them all back. Forming a line to shake his hand, honestly!

"They could show a bit more decorum," Lily agreed, hoping Hagrid would do something about this soon.

Remus and James were frowning and shaking their heads, remembering all over again just what exactly Harry was now famous for, and not liking the reminder. Harry could sense how upset this was making them, and while he didn't like it anymore than they did, he did venture to ask one thing, "How did they even recognize me? Hagrid I'll give, Dumbledore surely was the one to tell him, but them?"

"Most likely they had a picture of you," Lily sighed, "if your name is so famous then I'd bet there would be pictures of at least James and I floating around, and you do resemble your father enough it's not hard to miss." This only seemed to depress the lot of them all the more, so Harry didn't press for more details, admitting they wouldn't know anyways.

"Well we were right before," Sirius said, taking a brave stab at their normal conversation again. "The members of the Order are still hanging around him a bit." He didn't seem to realize Harry didn't get the reference that Dedalus Diggle was an Order member, but the boy had been so quite lately he kept missing a lot of those expressions. Harry didn't even bother to bring to attention he had no clue what any of that meant no matter how sure he was he should know the answer.

"Fat lot of good it did," James grumbled, having hoped that all those dark feelings from being around the Dursleys wouldn't have been brought up again, at least this soon.

"It does make me at least thankful that it was an Order member, and not someone else," Remus scowled, still thinking any of Voldemort's supporters were likely to want revenge on Harry and now in his first foray into the magical world would be a perfect time to take an attack on him.

"Really now," Lily huffed, "this is getting ridiculous, people getting back in line over again."

"Oh," they all brightened at this change of Quirrell being introduced by Hagrid. "What do you suppose he teaches?" Lily asked eagerly.

"Won't find out till I read now will I?" James asked cheekily, while Lily reached around and smacked him lightly. Harry wasn't listening; he was blinking in surprised shock as he realized that name should mean something to him, something he definitely didn't like. Perhaps he was just a really bad teacher?

"Is he going to stammer like that the whole time?" Sirius asked with a frown, "because it will get quite annoying."

"You're quite annoying, and we put up with you," Lily reprimanded.

"Not the best teacher for the subject then," Remus said sadly at the man shuddering at his own subject topics over the Dark Arts.

"Remember Kimbell? That woman couldn't read a book right side up properly, can't think of many teachers worse than her," Sirius laughed.

"Dumbledore must be really desperate by this point," James sighed, the news of this teacher going pale over a book on vampires just growing sad.

"I don't get it?" Harry finally asked, there was clearly something going on here

"Oh," Remus said in surprise, "yes well, there's a rumour that the Defence against the Dark Art's teaching post is cursed."

"Voldemort supposedly cursed the position years ago," James added on in a spooky voice to show what he thought of that.

"And as no teacher ever held the job for longer than a year, for various reasons, most of us are inclined to agree," Remus finished in a bit more clinical tone, as he'd never found a better explanation for the constant run of teachers.

Harry wasn't sure if he had any real feelings for this, but staring at Remus really was tickling his mind for this topic for some reason...but then it was gone as soon as James had continued.

"About time," they all huffed when Hagrid finally got Harry out of there.

Remus nodded sadly, "I suppose if you don't know how to handle those instances Quirrell went through they could have an effect on you."

"But he's the DA teacher," Sirius said in exasperation, "he should be exactly the one to handle those things." The other three all agreed, and guessed that this wasn't going to be a very good start to Harry's magical education in that class.

"You're feeling alright now though?" Lily asked quickly in concern when James' face puckered at reading of Harry's head swimming with information.

Harry however was leaning comfortably back against the couch, and nodded quickly to her. "I can't explain it, but this all seems perfectly normal to me now. New still yes, but, ordinary."

"And you'll tell us if you do feel overwhelmed?" James reminded, feeling almost overly concerned.

Harry promised that he would.

"I don't blame you," Lily laughed, remembering her first time in Diagon Alley and wishing for more eyes as well. "I couldn't stay in one spot."

"Bet your first stop was the book store," Sirius teased. Lily's blush was enough of an answer for them.

James let out a throaty whistle, "boy prices sure went up in the passing time for Dragon liver."

"Unavoidable that," Remus laughed.

"The best shop in the Alley, Quality Quidditch Supplies," Sirius imparted this wisdom on Harry now while he could.

"Nice," both boys chanted at once when the new Nimbus Two Thousand was displayed. "Oh I wish we could see it," Sirius added on.

"Probably not anytime soon," Remus gently reminded.

Lily actually said along with James the engraving upon Gringotts;

Insert Gringotts engraving.

All the others looked at Lily in shock; James was finally able to ask, "How on earth did you memorize that?"

"I love poems of all kind," Lily told him, "I memorized that the first time I saw it."

"Nutter, honestly," Sirius laughed, and kept going when Lily gave him a sharp glare, his fear long gone of Lily Evans cursing him for his light mockery. He of course was right, as Lily just shook her head in exasperation, while Harry watched the whole thing with wide eyed fascination, drinking in every detail.

"At least the goblins are professional," Lily grumbled, still smarting slightly from the Leaky Cauldron and happy the goblin attending Hagrid and Harry wasn't giving her son lingering stares.

"How though?" James suddenly asked in surprise, the question occurring to him as it was presented. "If that's the key to my vault, how did Hagrid get it?"

"Dumbledore most likely," Lily reminded him, "he seemed to have taken responsibility over for Harry." She threw Sirius a pained looked, who had paled a bit before continuing, "he probably held onto it, and then gave it to Hagrid when he went to fetch Harry."

James nodded absentmindedly, thinking of the other possessions he had in his house, wondering what had become of certain items. He suddenly shook himself as he got off track, deciding he'd have to think about it later.

"Could he be any vaguer?" Sirius frowned at Hagrid's mysterious mentions of Dumbledore's errands in another vault.

"Honestly if he'd just come out and said what it was, Harry probably wouldn't even know," Remus agreed.

"Why wouldn't he want Harry to know anyway?" James asked.

"Search me," Lily sighed.

"Were you expecting anyone else at this point but another Goblin?" Sirius chuckled at Harry's continued pointing out of Griphook arriving.

Harry didn't answer, as he felt it again. An insistent niggle telling him there was a connection to that name, and one he was sure he didn't like, and this time he had no idea why that could be.

"My point," Remus interrupted when Harry turned around and asked Hagrid about all of this anyways. James just ignored it.

"If it's so important then why did Dumbledore send Hagrid to get it at the same time as getting Harry," Lily asked severely. "He couldn't have gone to get it some other time?"

"Convenience I suppose," Sirius shrugged, not remotely as worked up about it, he had more trust in Hagrid's multi-tasking abilities.

"Of course it magically controls itself," Remus laughed, "considering the route magically changes every time anyways."

Harry just watched him in further confusion for the explanation. The more he heard about magic, the more complex it sounded, and their ease of just referring to it fascinated him as much as watching them chat with each other.

All five of them burst out laughing at Hagrid's explanation between stalagmites and stalactites. James managed to recover first, wiping slight tears from his eyes as he gasped, "well he's not wrong."

Remus was still snickering slightly as he began, "stalactites grow from the ceiling, stalagmites grow on the floor. That's the basic answer anyways."

"Is there anything you don't know?" Sirius demanded.

"How your mind works," he responded without looking over.

James grimaced in disgust, "that wouldn't be a pleasant trip, being thrown up on halfway through the trip and all."

"I'd imagine it happened all the time though," Lily agreed, having a bit of a weak stomach for roller coaster type things herself.

James expression went dower, the opposite of his sons wonder when his new to him vault was described. "That should hold you till school's over anyways," James said sadly, wishing he could have left his son with something a bit more then gold, "after you turn seventeen, you'd inherit the whole of the Potter vault, so this is practically nothing." Harry went a little cross eyed at the thought of such riches, but couldn't think of anything to say to it really. 'Thank you' just didn't seem to quite cover it.

"Assuming you're not like your father and try to buy a new broom every year. Or buy all of your supplies in solid gold," Lily said scathingly throwing James a bit of a dirty look, more to keep his attention from lingering than anything.

James was quick to defend himself, "hey, can you blame me; I was trying to impress a pretty girl."

Lily just rolled her eyes, and pointed at the book before he could keep going.

"No, they couldn't," Remus snapped, seeing red for a brief second at such a thought as the Dursleys taking more away from Harry, like something James could actually give him, even if only money.

"Thankfully," Lily said quickly, "I think Harry's right, and they just don't know it exists. So it shouldn't even be a problem." Privately she was thinking that, legally, yes the Dursleys very well could have rights to this, if anyone informed them that was. So her fingers were crossed no one ever had or would.

A bit deeper grumbling, but thankfully, no outburst this time of further mentioning on the Dursleys complaints of how expensive Harry apparently was when they bought Dudley everything in the world.

"One speed only," Remus managed a chuckle again at Hagrid's request for a slower speed on the cart ride continuation. "It's magically enchanted that way."

"You know a bit too much about this stuff," Sirius told him, giving him an eye.

Remus blushed a bit before saying, "yes well, I briefly considered a career in curse breaking. So I studied up quite a bit on the subject."

All the other occupants gave him startled looks before James said with hurt in his voice, "you never told us that."

"Remus, you'd be traveling all the time," Lily said sadly. Sirius looked akin to a kicked puppy.

"Considered," he repeated quickly, "I figured, you know Goblins wouldn't mind me much and-"

"So what changed?" Sirius asked quickly, seeing his friend's line of reasoning, though still not liking it much, he could hardly fault him.

"Harry," he answered, smiling down at the baby in his arms, and then looking at the adult squished between his parents. "When I found out Lily was pregnant, I decided to stay local for at least a bit longer. I wanted to be there while both of your parents were still getting their feet together, their own careers you know. Sirius is pretty busy with the Order, and Peter has been moving around just as much lately, restless I suppose," he gave a half shrug at all of their looks and said, "I figured I'd bring it up eventually."

"We will discuss this later," James said, giving his friend a stern look, though unimaginably warmed at the thought behind it.

Harry briefly considered interrupting to ask what the 'Order' was this time simply to bypass how odd it was to imagine being baby sat considering he wasn't that age. This was mentioned several times before, but James was already reading on and he decided to save it for later.

"Not safe," Lily said at once, "not safe at all, you could have gotten your head knocked off sticking it out the cart like that."

"Relax Lily," James laughed, "I did that almost every time I went down. Those tracks won't hurt you."

Despite James assurance, Lily still felt relieved Hagrid had stopped him.

"Pleasant," Sirius grumbled at Griphooks explanation of one particular security measure, like checking the vaults for criminals every ten years.

"That's murder," Lily said in shock.

"Do you really think they care?" James asked curiously.

"Goblins live by their own rules, remember?" Remus told Lily. "They see this as just punishment for trying to steal their stuff, and the ministry doesn't interfere in Gringotts."

"I don't know better than to ask," Sirius said at once with a bit of sulk, "but I suppose you don't know that answer." Harry shook his head, rubbing his temple in agitation again for wondering when he would.

"That can go to your head," Lily said, not quite reprimanding, just cautioning him taking off with a pocket full of gold for the first time in his life.

"Relax," Remus told her, "he's with Hagrid; he won't let him go crazy.

"What?" All four adults yelped in shock at Hagrid just departing.

"He really shouldn't have left you alone like that," Lily said at once.

"It's fine," Harry soothed, "I wandered around by myself on my own all the time. The only reason I was nervous was because of the magical part." None of them were really very happy about this, but they also knew Madam Malkin was a professional type of woman, so they figured it was better than somewhere else he could have been left.

Lily smiled sadly at the start of his time in Madam Malkins Robes for all Occasions, knowing this was Harry's first interaction with a boy his age, from the magical world. It was still depressing to think her son didn't have any friends all this time.

"See," Harry spoke up in defence for himself at their earlier protest. "He was left on his own. It's not that odd."

"Still," James grumbled.

"Why would his mother be looking at wands?" Remus asked. "It wouldn't do him any good."

"Maybe she needs a new one," Sirius suggested with a shrug.

"Don't," Remus and Lily said at once when Quidditch was brought up again.

"But you didn't even scratch on-" Sirius began.

"You can talk about it later," Lily repeated, growing rather annoyed that they just wouldn't let it go.

Taking a hint, James decided to keep going.

"My poor dear," Lily sighed, running her hand through his hair in sympathy, knowing exactly how stupid one could feel at the introduction to all of this.

"Don't smother him Lily," James laughed.

"What are houses?" Harry asked before Lily could respond hotly.

"The four Hogwarts houses," Remus said at once, not wanting Sirius to get a biased opinion in, "Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. When you get to school, you'll be sorted into one of the four houses depending."

"Depending on what?" Harry inquired, when it seemed Remus wasn't going to keep going.

"It's up to the Hat," Sirius said honestly.

When Harry's blank look continued James jumped in with, "well, when you get to Hogwarts, then you'll fully understand. Besides, I want to see the look on your face when you, err, remember it for yourself."

Harry sort of wanted to keep arguing, but then Remus said, "it really is tradition that we don't tell you. It's a secret, so that no new students can be thinking of it ahead of time." Harry finally nodded his acceptance and let it go.

"I am liking this kid less and less," James said frowning. Sure he was loyal to his own house, and would admit to being a bit biased towards Slytherin for personal reasons, but he knew deep down that he would love whatever house his son wound up in. So this random kid belittling Hufflepuff right away when Harry could wind up in there put him on edge.

"Well at least Hagrid went and did something nice for Harry," Lily said smiling at his return with ice cream outside the window.

"Assuming those aren't both for him," Sirius quipped.

"No," all five said at once severely. "Hagrid is nothing of the sort," Harry couldn't help but agree at once, even just now having memories returned of Hagrid was putting him on the defence for him.

"Thank Merlin," Sirius agreed as Harry's opinion of this other boy was dropping by the line. "I'd hate for him to be Harry's first friend."

Harry was beginning to feel his head start to pound again, the longer this conversation went on, the more he felt like he knew this boy. However, it was nothing good, so he said nothing and let the reading continue.

"Thank you for defending Hagrid," Remus said smiling, seeing a bit of both his parents there, neither would have stood for someone insulting their friend.

James stuttered a bit at referencing his own death again through Harry, it didn't seem to be getting any easier the more he said it, but quickly pushed on.

"Great," Sirius snarled, "he escapes one Dudley only to find another the same day." How could anyone be so callous about hearing of someone's parent's death?

"I'm hoping they won't have much to do with each other," Lily said quickly.

"That's not exactly what he meant," Lily said sadly, trying to correct Harry's perception of what this boy's idea of a witch and wizard were that this question alone made clear.

"But Harry's answer is perfectly correct," James said hotly before she could.

"Well that cinches it," Sirius sneered, "he's a pureblood, bigot."

"A what?" Harry asked curiously, not understanding such a violent reaction.

Sirius tried to explain as best he could, "There are different 'types' of wizards if you will, though there's really no difference when you get down to it. By this boy's attitude, I'd wager anything he's a pureblood, which means both of his parents have wizard parents and they were both pureblood wizards etcetera. Then there's muggle-born, which is what he's referring to when he says 'the other sort' and that's a witch or wizard who comes from a muggle family, with no witch or wizard blood immediately traceable."

"Like me," Lily put in quietly for Harry, as Sirius finished.

"Then there's half-blood, which is a muggle parent and a wizard."

"Which is what I am," Remus input, "my mother was a muggle."

Sirius nodded before finishing, "a lot of pure-blood wizards think they're better than the lot because of well, their pureblood statutes. Which is bogus, and-"

"It's alright Sirius," James cut in, when it became obvious his best friend was about to go into a full blown tangent, casting Harry a sideways look he summarized, "and this boy seems like the first kind."

Harry nodded in understanding, and decided against asking what had upset Sirius so much, saving that for later. He also refrained from asking what that would technically make him. If his mother was a muggle born but his dad was obviously a pureblood, which now made a bit more sense why he hadn't understood what ordinary things were before at the Dursleys place, he'd never been around such things; would that make him a half blood, pureblood, or three quarters or... He let the matter go and decided against asking because he decided he didn't care one way or the other, he just wanted to know more which he decided he'd learn as this continued.

"That would make attendance at school, like twenty, tops," Lily balked, "if they went by only letting purebloods in."

"Then it's thankful they don't do that," James consoled.

"Don't tell him your last name," they all said at once.

"He'll just throw himself at you, pretending and all," Sirius grumbled in disgust.

"Can't do anything about it now though," Harry reminded them, smiling slightly.

James quickly read on, wanting to know, but still hoping Harry had the wit not to.

"Thank Merlin," James breathed when he was dismissed instead.

"Why was Harry done before him?" Lily asked curiously. "The other boy was already getting his done when Harry walked in."

"Maybe he's getting something special done to them," Sirius offered without any real care.

"Hopefully not," the others all muttered at his leaving comment of seeing Harry at school. Harry declined to mention that he had a bad feeling that, yes in fact he would.

All four frowned at this, wishing for what like the hundredth time that Harry had someone to open up to. There was also just the smallest bit of relief that Harry wasn't quite opening up all the way to Hagrid anymore than them, even about all the questions that conversation must have brought up in him that he'd certainly asked them some of.

"Don't even," Lily said when Quidditch was again brought up.

James gave her a pout before muttering, "I wasn't going to, that time."

"I think that was a backwards compliment," Sirius snickered at the reference to Petunia.

"But true all the same," Lily agreed, smiling at the flattery from Hagrid.

"I'm impressed Hagrid knows what soccer is," Remus approved.

"The rules are no such thing as hard to explain," Sirius huffed under his breath, though he had the sense to keep his mouth shut this time.

"It wouldn't matter to us if you were in Hufflepuff," Lily said at once.

"And there's nothing wrong with Hufflepuff," James finished what he was sure Hagrid was fixing to say.

"Really?" Harry asked the room to confirm the rumor of You-Know-Who being in Slytherin.

They all exchanged looks before Lily answered sadly, "That's a stereotype dear, all the houses have one. Not everyone in Slytherin is awful-" she stuttered off for a moment, looking pained before pressing on, "but the bit about Voldemort is true, at least as far as rumors go."

"Considering no one really knows anything about Voldemort, including his school years, or even if that's supposed to be a real name, yeah it's sadly just a rumor," Sirius agreed. Harry nodded to himself sadly, again feeling that awful ache of where an answer was supposed to be, but as with every other time, forced to let it go.

"If no one knows anything about Voldemort," Harry asks, feeling a funny little feeling at saying that name for the first time but quickly brushing past it, "how does Hagrid know that he went to Hogwarts?"

"As Voldemort was trying to conquer this part of the world," Remus offered, "most assume he went to Hogwarts. After all if he came from say Australia, why would he be here?" Harry nodded in understanding and let the matter go.

"Why would you buy books that small?" Sirius asked when descriptions of the bookstore came up.

"It's a joke," Lily told him. "You're supposed to use an engorgement charm on it to make it bigger, and then learn about shrinking spells in it." Sirius just shook his head but kept going.

James did butt in this time by asking, "What are stamps?"

"Something Muggles have to put on their mail so it'll go through their postal system, they're really tiny like the size of your thumb," Harry happily explained, finding it pleasant he was getting to explain something back to his father for once.

"Do not blame you," Remus agreed, "I know Hagrid couldn't stop me finding a curse for Dudley."

Harry laughed in surprise at their agreeing with him on this one.

"Sad but true," Sirius sighed, Harry looking curious that apparently there were levels and even more complexity of magic.

"Thank you Hagrid," Lily agreed, "since a lot of potions can react to the material they're being brewed in, even some first year potions. It would be irresponsible for anybody to let their child buy a gold cauldron."

"I'm sure the potion teacher wouldn't let them," James smirked, remembering Slughorn's reaction when he tried the same thing.

"You know I never thought about that," Sirius cocked his head to the side, "but how would muggles know to get potion supplies? If Hagrid hadn't been there, I mean it's not on the school list."

"We're allowed to use the school's cupboards until we mail for our own," Lily grumbled, having mentioned this several times too many teachers, but nothing had ever been done about it.

"It's because the school lets you waste their first batch of potions the first years will inevitably do," James said like he'd thought it was obvious. "I didn't buy any, my parents encouraged me to experiment in there with their stuff before buying my own."

Lily looked surprised at this explanation, but also a touch better she finally got some kind of explanation.

"I can't thank Hagrid enough," James vowed for being the first person to get his son a birthday present.

"That's the point of birthdays Harry," Sirius said in an almost stern voice, angry enough that he had to actually explain this, "you do deserve it." While Harry's gratitude was good to see, he shouldn't be falling over himself thanking someone for something like a gift.

"Ten times over," Remus muttered, giving the baby in his lap a little tickle to his tummy.

"Aw," Lily cooed, "Hagrid is the sweetest, buying you an owl to keep in touch!"

"That's fascinating," Remus beamed when the snowy owl was declared as Harry's, "though a little flamboyant."

"It's the one I would have picked," James agreed.

Lily frowned, worrying her lip a bit, not wanting to think of how the Dursleys were going to react when Harry was forced to go to them with an owl. Petunia hated animals. Hopefully the fear of Hagrid would loom over them enough they wouldn't say anything. This thought didn't seem to have crossed any of the boy's minds as they kept going.

Now they all frowned at Hagrid's seemingly passing comment of acknowledging Harry's treatment of his birthdays at the Dursleys, suddenly wondering just how much Hagrid knew about what the Dursleys had done to Harry. Harry quickly jumped in, "I've never asked, but Hagrid doesn't know much. I really don't know for sure," he trailed off and James sighed in defeat before forcefully pressing on.

"I don't blame you looking forward to your wand the most," Lily chuckled weakly, slightly bringing the mood back around.

"Whose wand is that in the window on the cushion?" Harry asked curiously.

"Rumor has it that it's supposed to be Merlin's," James said in a mysterious tone of voice.

"But that's just a rumor," Remus said smiling.

James beamed with pride at the news Harry could sense the magic in the air. "That shows that you're very aware of magic in your surroundings. Highly useful skill that."

"I'm impressed it held his weight to begin with," Sirius snickered when Hagrid squashed a chair in surprise.

Lily smiled as she fingered her wand lovingly as Ollivander referenced it.

"He has that effect on people," Sirius agreed with a slight shiver, the man really was kind of creepy.

"I always thought he did it on purpose," Remus chuckled, "he likes to leave an impression."

"Came in handy for that branch to," James agreed with an obvious wink at Remus, who just smiled indulgently at the mention of James' wand.

All four adults huffed a bit at that, Lily even muttering, "that's going a bit far now, even putting a finger on you." Harry honestly thought they were being a bit sensitive, but it was still so new to him at all seeing people get worked up over something like this he couldn't begin to put it into words.

All four of them balked at the news Voldemort had actually gotten his wand from this very place, stunned to learn that Ollivander knew Voldemort's real identity. "Do you think Dumbledore knows about that?" James asked.

"Oh I'm sure he does," Remus said at once.

Remus snorted with laughter, "now why would he admit to keeping the pieces of his old wand?"

"Why shouldn't he?" James asked, lips twitching, "It's not like he could still be using them of course."

"Oh of course not," Sirius agreed, fighting back laughter.

When Hagrid clutched his umbrella guiltily under the continued eye of Ollivander, all three boys finally broke and cracked up laughing a bit, while Lily simply shook her head in fondness.

"Why that thing measure us like that?" Sirius asked, still chuckling slightly. "Exactly what does the length of knee to armpit have to do with wands?"

"It's a magical item," Remus reminded him, "after the first measurement, it kind of just wanders off with a mind of its own, and Ollivander lets it while he thinks."

"I once met a chap who had tried to use centaur hair," James laughed, "now that had some disastrous problems."

Sirius was snickering as he said, "remember that time when someone tried to use a mermaid scale as a core. That wand flooded the whole floor." After a bit more laughter, James finally went back to his reading.

"Wow," Lily said in surprise, "he got mine on the second try."

"Got mine on the first," James and Sirius both said laughing.

"It took him five tries to get mine," Remus remembered.

Harry looked at them, as relived as he was pleased they were sharing he wasn't unique in having to take so many attempts to find his wand. He couldn't help just for a moment his eleven year old mind starting to wander with panic, that perhaps he wouldn't even be able to find a wand-

"Wow," they all said in surprise this time, while James carried on, "I don't think he's ever had this much trouble before."

"Yes well, just like all professionals in a field, at least he's enjoying the challenge," Remus said, still smiling.

"There you have it," Lily cried with joy, Harry instantly relaxing as he got this memory back of his wand.

"You know they say the type of wood you get says something about your personality," Sirius said, smiling a bit.

"I don't put much stock into wandlore," James waved him off before he could keep going.

"Why's that so curious?" Remus asked, just as bewildered.

"Why do you do that?" Sirius demanded, "None of us knows the answer."

"It's called a curious nature Sirius," Remus replied back a bit snippy.

Despite the shock they all felt at hearing the news of the twin cores, they were far more concerned at Harry's reaction.

As James read this out, Harry gasped in pain, suddenly clutching his skull as if it were about to burst in two. "Harry dear," Lily said at once, wrapping her arm around his shoulder.

James quickly put the book aside and leaned down, trying to look his son in the face, as he was now doubled over and pressing his face to his knees. Sirius got wearily to his feet, heading towards the kitchen he called "I'm going to-" but quickly cut himself off when Harry muttered something.

"What's that dear?" Lily asked in as calming a voice as she could manage.

Finally looking up, and blinking several times as if coming out of a trance he gasped, "I knew that. But there's more, there's something really important about that, argh-" he cut himself off and clutched his head again.

Getting off the couch and leaning in front of him James said in a stern voice, "Harry, stop trying to strain yourself. Memory charms are some of the trickiest there is, and your memory's will only come back with time. Trying to force them back like this could cause you serious harm, so quite fighting it."

Still panting slightly, Harry nodded and bit by bit relaxed until he could finally look up again and look around at all of them, upon seeing the concern and fear etched into their pale faces he muttered, "Sorry."

After a short stunned pause Sirius burst into laughter, clutching his stomach, while looking pityingly at his pup, "Just what are you apologizing for? Giving us a heart attack? I'm sure there will be plenty more where that came from."

Still looking slightly abashed, Harry nodded and leaned back against the couch again, rubbing his temple in agitation but not looking in quite as much pain now. The four adults exchanged uneasy looks, but Remus finally said, "suppose we can go on yeah? You all right with that Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry said quickly, wanting to deflect the attention off of him.

As James got up and picked the book back up and began flipping pages to find his place. Sirius made his way causally over to the love seat, sprawling himself out on it, and being much more able to keep an eye out from this angle. While they all deeply wanted to discuss what they'd just learned, Harry still looked so out of it they were far more concerned at keeping him away from this topic for a while.

"Great and terrible," Sirius grumbled, "yeah, that about covers it."

"By product of switching from muggle to magical," Lily agreed, "the transition is a bit weird."

"Well that was quite the bombshell," James deflected for his boy, still a bit in shock over both the news, which he hadn't even had a chance to fully think about, and his son's severe reaction to said news. Hagrid could show a little more understanding if Harry wanted to be quiet in his own mind for a while.

"How come you keep accidentally slipping on the Voldemort thing then?" Remus asked.

"It's his natural genes," Sirius said proudly, "no one in this family is afraid to say his name."

Harry chuckled slightly at this, but was honestly unable to answer. He'd always felt from the very beginning that it was silly to call him You-Know-Who, but for some reason couldn't put it into words then, or now.

All of the adults smiled at Hagrid's exclamation of Harry's good time at Hogwarts to come, trying to push away for good that feeling of loss they had at not being there for him, and instead being so happy that Hagrid had said the perfect thing to him.

"What?" Lily yelped in shock.

"He's not going back with you?" James said in disappointment.

All of them were dreading what kind of reunion Harry would get when he showed back up on Private Drive alone. "Don't worry," Harry comforted at once. "They didn't do anything awful, they were too afraid of Hagrid." He stopped and chuckled briefly as he did remember that reunion. He had walked from his stop and come through the doorway with his stuff, and Uncle Vernon had stopped him at the door and demanded to know if the man was still with him. When Harry had told him no, but he had given him the owl to keep in touch, he had gone very pale white indeed, and simply stuttered that he should go to his room now. After telling them this, they relaxed a bit, though all majorly disappointed Harry had to go back at all.

"How do you think he managed to just disappear?" Sirius asked. "He can't apparate."

"Magic," Remus said in a goofy, mystical voice.

"Maybe he's had a Portkey this whole time to get back to school," Lily shrugged.*

"That's the chapter over," James announced, offering the book to Harry. "Would you like to read now?"

Harry took it eagerly, bypassing the question of what a Portkey was in favor of wanting more than anything to get his memories of such a wondrous school back.

*At least, that's the only thing I've been able to come up with after all these years. Let me know how you think he did it.


	7. PLATFORM NINE AND THREE QUARTERS

The longer this went on, the more Harry felt right. He knew these people around him, and he knew the things that were coming. He also knew that, they weren't all good things, but after that first chapter, he decided that knowing was still better than nothing.

This chapter in particular was going to be special, of that he was sure. His guardians were speculating all sorts of things from the house he'd be in to the friends he'd make, and even his first trip on the train. It made a warm feeling settle deep within him, and he was eager to read on.

"What, why wasn't your last month there fun?" Lily and James both yelped, fearing that the Dursleys really had punished Harry for Hagrid's act.

"Relax," Harry said at once, "they mostly just ignored me. That was kind of boring, so yeah, not fun."

Remus was shaking his head and saying, "come on now Harry. Was it ever fun there, really?"

Harry fidgeted a bit, knowing full well that all present wanted to have a full on talk with him about his life at the Dursley's, but he wanted very much to avoid that at all costs. It was in the past, there was no need to keep bringing it up, so he quickly pressed on.

Lily sniffed in disdain, "I suppose not speaking to you is the vaguest form of improvement."

"Better than the alternative," Sirius muttered darkly.

"I can see that," Remus agreed sadly, though ironically he'd wished to be ignored more rather than some of the stares he got.

"Oh, that's a beautiful name, Hedwig," Lily beamed, testing it on her lips for the first time. Harry smiled sadly to himself, happy that another piece of him felt right again, but for some odd reason the sad feeling lingered. He didn't really want to dwell on why.

"Don't even," Lily said at once, when it looked like Sirius was about to make a snide comment to Harry poring over his books. "Imagine you knew nothing of the magical world. Harry logically chose the History of Magic as a basis of understanding this."

Sirius grumbled under his breath for a bit, but Harry knew better then to ask about what.

"Ew," Lily crinkled up her nose, "no wonder my mother never wanted us to have an owl. How often did she bring dead animals back to you?"

"Oh mine was awful about that," Sirius laughed, "always left them right on the kitchen table. Kreacher's spent most of his life chasing Buggle out of the cupboards."

Harry winced slightly, recognizing something in that sentence, but after a moment it faded away again, too vague to even form a feeling about it. Sighing in annoyance, he answered his mother every few days to her further disgust before he kept going.

Sad as this was, none of them could really blame Harry for hanging up a calendar and ticking down the days to leave the only place he'd ever known.

"Leaving it a bit late there, asking him the day before you're due at King's Cross," Lily worried.

"Probably so he doesn't have time to reconsider," James huffed.

"Bet you a galleon none of them could answer a single question on that quiz show," Sirius snickered.

All four boys laughed a bit at Dudley flat running in terror from Harry, hoping that one never got old.

"What if that grunt of his meant no?" Lily worried at once. "How would you get there?"

"The Knight Bus," Remus offered.

"He doesn't know how to use that," Sirius frowned, "and he didn't get a broom either."

"Hagrid," James said with high confidence. "If the Dursleys don't take him, Hagrid will be back that very night, I'm positive."

Feeling relaxed again, Lily asked Harry to keep going.

"Really, I want to know where he learned manners," Lily smiled sadly, knowing it didn't come from those people. The fact that Harry continued to thank them when they couldn't even be bothered to string a sentence together for him was a miracle in itself.

"School I suppose," Remus said thoughtfully.

"Oh that's really clever. Magic carpets, why didn't we think of that?" James muttered snidely, more than sick of this man's supposed sense of humor.

"Why does he want to know where Hogwarts is?" Remus demanded.

"So he can safely know how far away the evil wizards are from him," Sirius huffed.

"Who asked where the platform was?" Lily asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "Vernon or Petunia?"

"Uncle Vernon," Harry said cautiously, Lily had a very peeved look in place and he wasn't sure why. She ground her teeth for a moment, but waved Harry on.

"Can't just say one decent thing to him can you?" James groaned when Vernon had to actually give a reason as to why he was bothering taking Harry anywhere.

"Why would you bother keeping things friendly with them!" Remus half demanded, not really expecting a good answer.

"I'd had no conversation for nearly a month," Harry defended.

"Pity that," Sirius laughed darkly. He honestly wished that tail would never be removed.

"I do wonder how they explained that away though?" Lily said, a bit vindictive herself.

"I think they told them it was a mole that had grown out of hand or something," Harry said, scratching absently at the back of his head as he remembered some phone calls he'd overheard.

"Honestly, the robes would have been better than the garbage they say you had," Lily huffed, wishing her son in fact had changed to his school robes, but she supposed, it was probably better not to invoke their ire when they could dump him on the motorway half way there.

"The one good thing that's come of this so far," Sirius laughed, "Dudley won't ever hit you again, that's for sure."

Harry nodded absentmindedly, touched a spot on the side of his head without seeming to realize he'd done it, and then pressed on.

"Nicest thing he's ever done for him I'm sure, actually helping him with his luggage into the stations," Remus snarled quietly, while baby Harry began to doze in his arms.

"Probably the excitement of him leaving has put him delirious to who he's helping," Harry said with a bit of a smile. It wasn't really that funny, but he hoped if he helped along to poke fun at this it would lighten them up more.

"Oh the joys of magic," Sirius said, thinking of all the other things hidden right under muggles, like this exact platform.

"I wish you were joking," Lily said, going red in the face.

"You are joking right," James demanded, leaning over Harry to see for himself. "They did not really pull away laughing, leaving you in the middle of the train station alone!"

"They are so lucky that you're in the right place or I'd-" Sirius muttered darkly for a moment, but Remus must have heard what he said because he laughed and gave an approving nod.

"But, Petunia knows where the platform is," Lily hissed, which was almost unmanageable through the gritted teeth. "Couldn't she have simply walked him in, pointed him through for all its worth, and be done with it?"

Harry was thinking privately to himself, he was quite glad his Aunt and Uncle hadn't done this. Not sure why, but he knew if he kept going he would find out, so he kept reading, despite they were all still grumbling death threats.

"In a way, you kind of are being stupid on purpose to that poor guard," Sirius forced a laugh, which sounded almost hollow. "Even if you could have told him, it's better that you didn't."

Harry was still frowning though as he asked, "How come there's not some wizard around who noticed me and helped? I can't be the only one who doesn't know how this works if it's not on my ticket."

"That's because Hagrid forgot dear," Lily sighed. "Most Muggleborns who would be in that same situation and are helped through the introductory process, such as their first time to Diagon Alley and such, well their guide remembers to tell them this trick."

Harry sighed as well, but couldn't find it in himself to blame Hagrid for this, as it was probably his first time doing this role. He doubted he was a common help in this situation, and Harry probably just got special treatment because of his name.

Lily and James were both shifting in real fear now, what would happen to their boy if he was left in the train station like that? He only had ten minutes left to figure it out!

Remus on the other hand was quick to point out, "Relax, all of you. There's always a late party, I'm sure Harry will spot a wizarding family and follow them through."

Trying their best to look relieved, all three nodded just a bit to appease them.

"Tapping your wand on it might have worked," Lily said making a face, "your wand would pass through the barrier, and you would have figured it out."

"But it is rather dangerous," James disagreed, "pulling your wand out in front of the lot of muggles like that."

"Let's just read eh?" Remus put in when it looked like the two were about to start a real argument over this simple fact.

"You see," Sirius said, brightening at once when a family showed up right on time. "Never doubt Moony. I learned that a long time ago."

The parents relaxed at once, egging Harry on.

"Why would she ask where the platform was?" James asked. "It never changes, and there's no other wizarding trains. She's definitely got enough kids around her some of them have been before."

"A reminder I suppose?" Remus offered, having no real idea himself.

"Ah there you go," Sirius said, "she probably said that every year, as a reminder, so in case one of her children got lost they would know to ask someone about it."

"But we've already established that Muggles don't know about the platform, so who would she ask in a station full of them?" Lily asked.

"Another wizard," James offered, "like what's happening now."

For the briefest moment as Harry first said name Ginny, his ring seemed to have a warm glow on his finger, but his sudden urge to understand the connection made it fade so quickly he had no time to dwell on why.

Harry gasped, the book nearly slipping out of his hand as more of their names came rushing through his mind.

"Harry dear?" Lily asked at once.

Harry didn't answer, because he knew this. Knew these names, this memory. This was the good feeling he'd had at the beginning of the chapter. He read on so quickly that the words were almost unintelligible.

"Harry slow down, your slurring," James said, concern coloring his tone, Harry's hands were starting to shake a bit.

"I know this," he told them quickly, without looking up, "I need to know why I know this."

"I always wanted a twin," Sirius laughed to himself, "just so I could pull that one joke of confusing my parents further."

Harry didn't even respond, because somehow he just knew that there was going to be one more name, and it was important to him.

The moment Harry spoke the name Ron, the book slipped from his grasp, and Harry was suddenly clutching his head in pain all over again. Having almost expected this, after the way he'd been acting, Sirius lunged from the couch and was rummaging through the kitchen cupboards almost before the book had hit the ground.

He came back into the room to see both parents trying to calm him back down, while Remus was pulling out his wand with one hand and trying to lay down the baby as gently as possible without waking him.

Trying to be gentle himself as he slightly pushed Lily out of the way, Sirius pushed Harry back against the sofa, pried open his jaw, and put the smallest bit of some foul smelling green liquid on Harry's tongue.

The boy reacted almost at once, relaxing back against the sofa, his eyes opening in a lazy haze, while James punched Sirius in the shoulder, hard.

"Ouch, what the bloody hell was that for?" He demanded, rubbing the spot, and putting the vile down on the table gently.

"What did you do?" Lily demanded, putting her hand on Harry's forehead in concern. "We agreed no potions, no spells, he's already having enough troubles Sirius."

Remus reached forward and snagged the bottle up, then quickly cut in before Sirius could give a snappy reply, "calm down you two, Sirius just gave him something to relax. James was right, he's going to hurt himself if he keeps straining like that, but this wasn't anything that will affect his mind. Just his body."

James immediately looked apologetic for punching his best friend, that hard anyways. "You could have explained that."

They didn't have time for anymore conversation, as Harry was already coming around. Shaking himself slightly, his eyes instantly came into focus on Sirius, then the rest of them, then frowned and began rubbing his head at once.

"Don't." All four said together.

"But I-" Harry tried, but Lily said quickly, taking his hand away, "Harry dear, please. We know this must be so frustrating to you, but if we can't go and punish those Dursleys for what they've done for you, then you must promise us you won't sit here and strain yourself to remember these things. It will come back, I am positive it will."

Green met green for a long time, Lily's wide and pleading, Harry's sad and desperate. Finally he nodded his consent, but when Lily merely tightened her hold on his hand he let out a huge breath and said, now looking around at all of them, "Alright, alright I promise. No more pushing it."

"Thank you." James sighed, leaning back out of his son's personal space, "I promise son, we will get through this."

Lily still kept a light hold on his hand for a brief moment more, but then Harry gently took his own hand back and reached down for the dropped book.

Sirius and Remus both got up to head back to their seats, but Remus stopped him and said, "Here," while handing the baby to him and said, "might stop you from jumping around every five seconds."

Remus then took the bottle back and went to put it back where it belonged. By the time he came back, Sirius was sprawled back out, with the baby sleeping on his chest, and Harry was ready to start again.

Taking his seat, Remus vowed to keep a much closer eye on him now. He believed Harry's promise, but he knew better than anyone that sometimes you couldn't help your nature, and Harry clearly had a very curious nature. He may not even be able to help himself next time.

"I do know him though," Harry huffed to himself, then shook his head and began again.

He only winced for the briefest moment at the description, a face he should know as well as his own, but kept his promise and did not press on the feelings that were swarming in him again.

"That was very kind of her, helping you out like that and not at all sounding, well," Lily said sadly, trailing off a bit at any number people Harry could have met who wouldn't have been as pleasant. Her concern for Harry more prominent now than the feeling of loss she now had it still wasn't her in this role.

"Nah," Sirius chuckled slightly, "you won't crash. No magical person has ever been barred entrance."

Harry gave him an uneasy look, some deeper feeling wanting to protest he was the exception to that rule, but he hoped it was just his pessimistic side popping up as usual.

Pride swelled up in all four of them as Harry finally passed officially into their world, this was it. Harry was back where he belonged, and away from those Dursleys.

"Oh," Lily said brightly, "remember James, Alice and Frank had a boy named Neville. I kept saying we should bring Harry 'round there. They're practically the same age."

James nodded, smiling to himself, but privately thinking this couldn't be the same boy. Alice and Frank would have been mentioned, and they wouldn't have missed Neville's first train ride to Hogwarts anymore then if he and Lily had been alive to see Harry there.

"Someone got a new pet spider it seems," Remus chuckled to himself at that passing bit of a hairy leg.

"I dropped my trunk on my foot as well getting it up there," Remus said sadly. "I was limping for half the day."

Sirius and James again winced at the harsh reminder that they weren't there, that no one was there, to help Harry out.

"That was so sweet," Lily beamed again when two students popped up just to help Harry with his luggage.

"Are you going to be like that this whole chapter?" Sirius asked, still feeling rather grumpy.

"Yeah Lily," James defended Sirius, "it's not so weird that students help each other out."

Lily frowned severely at the pair, couldn't she just be happy that someone was finally taking the time to help her boy.

"Well that was descriptive," Remus chuckled at these twins inarticulate way of asking Harry who he was.

"Oh not this again," all four adults groaned at Fred and George just watched Harry.

"I really don't want another Leaky Cauldron scene," James sighed, placing his face in his hands, "except this time with the whole bleeding platform."

"Better get used to it now," Sirius grumbled bitterly, "he's going to be dealing with it at least the first week he's at school."

"Well in that case, I'm hoping he'd be in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw," Remus sighed, "at least those two houses are more likely to show a bit of decorum."

"And you were the one who said not to believe the house stereotypes," Lily reminded him, while privately agreeing.

Remus spluttered for a moment, but Harry decided it was time to keep going.

All four adults muttered a silent thank you to whoever that mother was calling her kids away before the situation could get worse for Harry.

Lily sighed, wanting to reprimand Harry for watching them out the window, but unable to when it occurred to her that this was most likely the first time Harry had ever seen a real family interaction.

The other three were just slightly happy that this was a good omen to Harry being the next Marauder Junior. Not even at Hogwarts and already being a bit sneaky.

"That poor kid," James said sadly, "no mother should do that in public."

"He'd be much happier that bit of dirt being there than her removing it," Remus agreed.

"She's got at least four others, you would think she'd know better," Sirius sighed, "no mothering in front of the peers."

"Well his siblings are no help," Lily muttered when the two red heads introduced just began picking on this Ron.

"And here's the newest generation of Prefect's," Sirius said in disgust at one arriving.

"Come on now Sirius you can't still be holding a grudge can you?" Remus asked, feigning hurt.

"You bet your arse I can," Sirius grumbled, without any real heat in it. After all when two of your best friends were Prefect and Head Boy, you couldn't stay mad forever.

"Well he's not starting off very well," Lily said, "rubbing in a bit about the prefects getting their own compartment."

"Just showing off to his siblings or friends I'm sure," James grinned, throwing a look at his two friends, who both rolled their eyes at this.

"Yeah okay," James finally conceded when the twins explained for all to hear he'd been going on about his glorious status as new prefect all summer. "I wasn't that bad."

"Neither was I," Remus agreed. There was being proud of an accomplishment, and then there was just being vain.

"Honestly Moony," Sirius chuckled, "you looked like you were going to faint when you told us. So you were kind of the opposite of this lad."

Harry blinked, dearly wanting to ask what all the fuss about this Prefect badge was, but he also had that feeling again. One that meant something really important was about to happen, so he decided that he would simply take his answers from the book on this one.

"That's favoritism, buying him something new for an achievement none of them can help." Lily said, now frowning a bit severely. It only got worse as the twins egged on this fact. "She really shouldn't let them bicker like that. It could cause tension between siblings."

"Agreed," Sirius said, mostly to himself, but the others all heard it anyways.

Harry quirked a brow, this being the first mention of Sirius having siblings, but since his persona, and the looks from the others, made it quite plain he didn't want to discuss this he let it go for now.

"Oh," Lily said, rolling her eyes a bit while the boys all chuckled at the mention of blowing up toilets from the mother. "I get it."

"Get what?" James asked, not seeing any meaning in what Harry had just read.

"She was being affectionate to Percy, rewarding his good behaviour. I'll bet anything those two are as troublesome as you four."

"Us, troublesome?" Remus said, feigning innocence.

"Whatever do you mean dear?" James demanded, trying to hide a twitching smile.

"I'm not even going to bother," Sirius laughed, and then went on, "and she's doing a horrible job of it mind you. Never, ever, give a prankster ideas. Even just in passing comments. Keep going Harry, you'll see what I mean," he finished, when he saw Lily and Harry's confused looks.

"That's exactly what I meant," he laughed again when all her words had done was encourage them to try just this. He was laughing a bit harder this time, and the baby on his chest curled up to him more tightly, he placed a hand on his back, and just waved Harry on when it looked like Lily might argue the point.

Lily frowned severely, but sadly all the same. Despite wanting to protect her boy, could she really blame the wizarding world for wanting to meet, in their definition anyways, a saviour? Still, she was really hoping this mother wouldn't allow that little girl to have a look at Harry like a fish in a bowl.

"Thank you to her," James said what they were all thinking when she vehemently denied the kids want.

"I'll second that thank you," Remus agreed, not that Harry did remember what Voldemort looked like as the twins wanted, but it was the thought that counted.

"Very sweet those twins," Sirius laughed when they compensated by parting with their sister with more mention of toilet seats.

"Anything's better than what you're leaving," James grumbled to Harry's worry of where he was heading, but finally he shook off the last vestiges of hatred for that place, for now. Harry was finally heading to school, with any luck he'd never be sent back to those Dursleys again. Though that still didn't excuse them from punishment.

"Why do I somehow doubt that all the other compartments were full?" Sirius chuckled.

Harry sighed in annoyance, this had gone on long enough that he had been hoping to learn this Ron's last name. Instead this all began with awkward silence. He knew for a fact that the moment he heard it, he was going to receive another painful jolt. This boy, Ron, he had a very good feeling about him though, so he couldn't wait for it this time.

The moment the twins reappeared and gave him just that, Harry yelped as if being electrified, but true to his promise, he did not pry open that pain. He simply took a deep breath, and then opened his eyes to see the four of them looking at him with deep concern. Quick to explain he said, "I knew that. I know the Weasleys. Ron Weasley. We are friends." He said this with such conviction, that he didn't care if he had the memories to back this up. It was true, and nothing could change his mind.

Lily beamed, and wrapped an arm around him, "I'm so happy dear."

"I'm sure he's very worried about you," James said, also smiling at this. After all, he'd met his best friend on his first train ride as well. They were still best friends to this day, he had no doubts that Harry's friendship would last as well.

"I think I know the Weasleys," Sirius said, mostly to himself, "Molly and Arthur Weasley, yeah sounds familiar."

"Cousins then?" Remus asked, feeling as happy as the rest of them that Harry finally had a friend, someone he could really count on.

"Think so," Sirius said, trying to drag up old memories that he had tried very hard to get rid of over the years. "Weasley is an old pureblood family, and unlike most lines they prospered after the dark ages. Got a ton of lines that are still pure and traceable, but they're also well known for having survived through relations with muggles. I think that's how they stayed so many lines. They get a lot of flak for it though, which is probably why I never met them. Being muggle sympathizers and all."

"I think I met a Molly Weasley once," James said slowly. "The Prewett twins in the Order, I met them at Diagon Alley once, and they introduced me to their sister Molly. She had just recently gotten married then, after all this was a few years ago."

"Well she's clearly been busy then," Remus chuckled, thinking that five kids was more than enough work to put up with.

Harry beamed around at them all, happy that he was finally getting somewhere. He also knew that, there was something else though. Or someone else. He had another feeling that he was going to meet someone else really important on this train ride, and he asked if it was alright for him to continue.

"Subtle," James chuckled at Ron's abrupt question if Harry really was, well, Harry.

"I hope Harry gets to know the twins really well," Sirius laughed when Ron confirmed their suspicions about what they got up to. "I'd love to see what the next generation of pranksters puts this school through."

Lily sighed, hoping the exact opposite.

Lily huffed in real annoyance now. "His mother specifically told him not to ask about that."

"And you always did exactly what your mother told you to do eh?" Remus asked her knowingly.

Lily wanted to mutter that this was different, but had no real way to.

"Besides," Sirius scoffed, "technically, she only forbade the twins from doing that. She didn't direct that at Ron."

Lily gave him the stank eye for that, his ability to find the vaguest of loopholes to throw in the teachers faces had always annoyed her, but didn't argue the point for now either.

"Fair enough," James said, looking sideways at his son who was trying to hide his blush at how fascinating he'd found Ron his past for being from a wizarding family.

Sirius spotted Lily pursing up her lips tight in her urge not to say something about Ron's mother having a squib sibling, but Sirius fielded her anyways. "Don't automatically blame the magical side of the family for that part, it's not uncommon for them to want to be left out and alone." He admittedly didn't know the Weasleys well, but for a reputation of blood traitors, it made sense to him.

Lily let the expression go.

"Just because you come from a magical family doesn't necessarily mean you get to skip to second year," Sirius stretched carefully, as he corrected Harry on that.

"The Weasleys aren't the best example of what that kid from Madam Malkins meant, but you're not wrong," Remus agreed.

"At least you acknowledge those Dursleys are horrible," they all agreed, hoping Harry would tell a teacher this before the year was up.

"So she has seven kids?" Sirius demanded.

Lily looked a little pale and in shock. She loved her son, but without the help of her boys, she would have gone stir crazy taking care of him. The idea of six more children was unbelievable.

James smiled sadly to himself, saying, "I don't blame them really. I always wanted siblings. They help build character, and I told you Lily, I do want more kids."

Lily looked at him like he'd grown a second head, "Yes, but seven!"

Still smiling James said, "maybe not that many." Then he frowned and winced slightly as he realized, he probably wasn't going to have any more kids.

Remus caught on to this, and said quite loudly, "Yes well, I don't see how it's our business how many kids they had, so let's press on then."

Harry nodded and kept going.

"Okay, so I can see a downside to that many kids," James agreed when Ron elaborated on all of his older siblings accomplishments, "but you have to give them all special attention."

"We are not having seven kids Potter," Lily said, rounding on him, "so drop that idea."

Harry was finding this more amusing as time went on, briefly thinking about the idea of siblings, but decided to keep going.

Harry felt a hiss of air escape him as another sharp stab plagued his thoughts at something as innocent as a pet rat being named, this one not nearly as pleasant as the last, but already having suffered enough from something in his memories today he refused to take notice of it as the others commentary continued, this time without seeming to notice him.

"Why would he have his brother's wand?" Sirius demanded. "His brother didn't die or something did he?"

"I doubt he would have said it in such a blasé way if he had," Remus said, frowning in thought, "but perhaps his brother had to get a new one for some reason, and gave that one to his brother."

"What would require a new wand though?" Harry asked.

All four sat there, genuinely stumped at this, so James finally told Harry to just keep going.

"Now I really wish Peter was here," Sirius cackled, when Scabbers was brought up again fast asleep. "Harry's best friend owns a pet rat. Oh I could take the mickey out of Peter for ages for this."

"I'm sure he'll turn up here eventually," Lily sighed, already getting a headache from that endless joke.

Harry frowned curiously at him, there was something very anxious building up in him that had nothing to do with teasing, but the idea was so blackened he honestly feared what it could even mean, it didn't feel good, so he tried to push his mind away from it for now.

"That's sad," Lily sighed. Her family may not have been rich, but she'd never been so poor she had to get hand me downs like Ron clearly had. She wondered what that must feel like, to never have anything was just theirs.

"But sometimes that's how it works," Remus muttered, poking a finger through a hole in his robes.

Lily frowned, but Remus was quick to say, "Look at this from Ron's point of view. Harry's just identifying with him, no need to be angry at the boy when he's feeling just a bit better Harry sharing his experience with the Dursleys. I don't know I'd be angry at that age either."

Lily sat back, still frowning slightly, but now wishing Harry would tell Ron everything that had happened, Ron wouldn't feel better then. She, however, doubted that he had, if his attitude today showed anything.

"The poor kids," Sirius chuckled, "being afraid of something as silly as a name." He supposed he'd have to find some way to restrain himself if Harry had fallen into the wizard tradition of calling him You-Know-Who, but as Harry already kept slipping, he had hopes of not.

Lily frowned at him this time and said, "It's the meaning in the name Sirius. They're afraid of what it stands for and-"

"Lily," James sighed, "what on earth are you telling Sirius this for?"

She deflated at once, even muttered a quick apology before Harry went on.

"Hagrid didn't make it seem that you shouldn't say it?" Remus asked, slightly amused.

Harry simply shrugged and said, "Hagrid was the first wizard I ever met, I thought he just didn't like saying it. Not all wizards."

"Don't be ridiculous Harry, you won't be the worst in a class because of being raised by muggles." Sirius said with a forced chuckle.

Harry didn't particularly look reassured, so James continued on, "Harry, you've shown tremendous skill already, without any proper training. No I am sure you will be just as good as everyone else, probably better really."

Harry gave them all smiles, wondering if they were just saying that to make him feel better, but then deciding he didn't care if they were. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.

"You don't say," Sirius laughed, throwing a sideways look at the muggleborn in the room who quickly became one of the best students in a few fields, proving Ron's point perfectly.

Lily graciously accepted the compliment by smirking just a bit.

"My favorite part of the train ride," Sirius stated, "getting hyped on as much sweets as I wanted."

"It's too bad they don't carry muggle sweets," Remus sighed, "I could go for one of those every now and then."

"A genuine pity you've never been around these," James sighed, licking his lips slightly, "since all of it is delicious."

At Harry's confused look upon reading most of these, Lily said, "I think Sirius still has some Liquorice Wands about, you can have some later if you'd like?"

Harry smiled and agreed at once, while Sirius didn't even begrudge Lily offering up his candy. He'd share anything with his pup.

"Spending eleven Sickles on sweets is nothing," Remus laughed, "our last train ride seventh year, the four of us actually managed to spend seven galleons worth of food before we came back to the station."

"Yes I remember," Lily agreed, "I was worried I was going to have to scrape you lot off the ceiling you were so hyper by the end."

Remus winced at the poor Weasley kid only bringing along a sandwich he didn't even like, saying in sympathy, "can you blame the poor woman, having to make all of those lunches for them."

"I can't decide if that's the nicest thing, or the saddest," James said frowning at the idea his son had never had anything or anyone to share with. Even he with his rather quite childhood from being an only child still managed to interact with some of the other local kids in the village.

"The first," Lily said quickly to his redundant statement, not wanting such a good mood to go down again.

"No love loss there," Sirius agreed to the forgotten sandwiches.

"Well," Sirius drawled out at the idea of the Chocolate Frogs being real.

"Don't even," Lily said at once.

"I wasn't going to Lily," he quickly backed down, "I was only going to tell him that they aren't, you know, most of the time."

"In other words," Remus grumbled, rubbing his stomach in remembrance, "don't take any sweets from Sirius if you've recently denied him access to your homework."

"I fixed you up in the end," Sirius cackled.

By this time Harry was laughing so hard, the book nearly fell out of his grip again. He loved watching this family, his family, joke around with each other.

"I own every card there is, that one's really common now," James said with pride, it was one of his proudest achievements, until a little baby came along that is.

"You do know they distribute new cards every year," Remus reminded him, "so by Harry's year, you won't have."

"No why would you say something like that Remus?" James said, looking genuinely hurt. "Now how am I supposed to keep up with that?"

"I'm sure you'll have no problems keeping up dear," Lily said in exasperation.

"Ptolemy's new," Sirius said, as James still looked a bit downcast. He'd come to the awful conclusion that he had died back in the first chapter, but it was the little things like this that were still a shock to him. Sirius understood this, and tried his best to cheer his mate up, "make sure you remember that and keep an eye out for it yeah?"

"Yeah, sure," James said, perking up almost instantly.

Interested Harry asked, "Why would Agrippa be common now, and rare then?"

"Supply and demand," James offered, "in say, what, eleven years from now, they'll have more cards, but not redistributed as many. So if they stopped making as many of them, it becomes rare."

Harry nodded along, rather intrigued, and privately wondering if he had a collection back home, the one he couldn't remember. One his father might be proud of?

"Dumbledore's is super rare right now," James said eagerly, "it just came out this year."

Lily rolled her eyes, but Harry smiled, fascinated to see his father so excited about something.

All of the adults beamed as Harry started reading the card, glad that in Harry's ten years growing up Dumbledore hadn't left Hogwarts. They would have been genuinely concerned for the school if he had.

When Harry was done reading, he at first didn't understand why Remus and Sirius suddenly busted out laughing, until he glanced over at his dad again, and saw he was grinning in triumph.

Lily told him, "your father was mouthing along with you as you read that, proving he'd already memorized that card."

Harry then chuckled slightly, he loved watching them interact so much that he hardly noticed the flutter something on that card caused him before moving on.

"Morgana's old," James commented, "practically an antique."

"Really James, are you going to comment on all of them?" Lily demanded.

"Probably," he grinned, "for Harry's benefit after all."

Lily was unable to argue with that logic.

"It is a bit odd muggle pictures don't move at all," James agreed, "I still don't understand why they don't get bored."

Remus and Lily shook their heads at the ceiling, both having tried to explain that concept to James, and it still being lost on him.

"Hengist of Woodcroft is another new one," James said in excitement, "oh I've got two of Alberic Grunnion, only one of Circe, she's a bit rare, like eleven of Paracelsus, and everybody has fifty of Merlin since there's one in every ten frogs." James proceeded to prattle off with every card his son named.

"Really James, are you quite done?" Lily demanded, his silliness getting a bit out of hand.

"That depends, are there any more frog cards Harry?" James asked in excitement.

"No," Harry told him, just as disappointed as he seemed to be. "At least not listed, oh hang on there's one more-" he said, looking back down at the page and reading quickly about Clidona scratching her nose.

"Another new one!" He cried eagerly, making to get up and go fetch a quill to write these all down.

"James really," Lily huffed, "the books aren't going anywhere, and I want to see Harry get to school. You can write them down later."

"Oh fine," he huffed, slumping back down.

"I got a candle wax Bean once," Sirius said, thinking back when the candy topic changed.

"Worst one I ever got was strawberry," Remus laughed.

"Yeah, yeah Moony, we all know your uncanny ability to never actually pick a bad bean," James grumbled.

"One time he ate a whole bleeding box without making a face once," Sirius agreed with a humph. "I didn't even know that was possible."

"Depending on how you like curry, and sardine, you got almost all of them as good," Remus approved.

"I've never heard of a grass one," Sirius said.

"Really, you lot are dragging on about this sweet thing far too much," Lily said in exasperation.

None of the boys looked the least bit repentant.

"Poor dear, lost his pet on the first day," Lily said in sympathy the moment some poor kid came along looking for his toad.

"That wasn't very nice of Ron saying he'd lose Scabbers on purpose," Lily huffed. "Pets are important to their people."

"Oh he's just joshing," James said, "I'll bet you anything he's plenty fond of that rat."

Remus looked surprised as he said, "you don't learn color changing charms until the end of first year. I'm not that surprised he couldn't pull it off."

"Well there are those exceptional students who can do stuff before their time," James said with quite a bit of vanity.

"That's it, the core is poking out." Sirius said in excitement. "That's probably why his brother had to get a new one, I'm betting if he worked with say, live animals, it's against regulation for a wand to have its core compromised. Too dangerous to work with the animals that way. Charlie probably had to get a brand new wand, so Ron got his."

"That was very insightful," Lily said in surprise.

"Though pointless if he doesn't work with animals," James said with a sly grin.

"You just wait," Sirius said, firing up at once, though still remaining absolutely still so as not to disturb the baby now sleeping heavily on him. "I am right."

Harry frowned, and his hands began to shake again. 'Your promise' he quickly reminded himself, even as the jabbing pain returned when a girl appeared with the toad-less boy. Sucking in a deep breath he said to the others, "It's happening again. I know this, I know what's about to happen-" then he paused, and winced before continuing, "-but then I don't. Urgh, I don't know, but I should and-"

Lily placed her hand on his again, then said quietly, "don't force it love. Just keep reading, it'll come naturally."

Harry nodded, sucked in a deep breath, then quickly read on to find the name of the unknown boy to be Neville, and the now clearly bossy girl speaking for him.

"That boy was just in there, why didn't he tell her he'd asked them?" Sirius rolled his eyes.

Harry had the distinct feeling this was the type of girl who would want to check for herself, getting a feeling for how she worked the longer he thought on this girl. He didn't say that aloud though, since he felt it would come out wrong about someone he was so sure of as a friend.

"I don't blame Ron being startled," Sirius agreed, "who'd want to be put on the spot like that?"

All four adults blinked once in shock before bursting out laughing when Ron actually tried to perform that 'spell'. Sirius even laughed so hard that the baby began stirring on his chest. Quickly controlling himself, he managed to come to first and explained to Harry's confused look, "that's not how spells work pup. Not at all. Someone lied to him."

James wiped a tear out of his eye before continuing, "Honestly, has he never seen his parents, or any of his older siblings do magic?"

"Yes well, I think it's his own fault," Remus gasped, still rubbing his ribs, "we've already established those twins were troublemakers. It's his own fault if he listened to them and took that spell seriously." Remus instantly winced at his slip and tried to correct himself halfway through the word, but too late.

Sirius quickly opened his mouth, and before any of the others could tell him to stop he blurted out, "I take everything seriously."

Harry looked over at him for a moment, before he began laughing as hard as the other adults just had. The other three just groaned, having heard that joke more than enough in their life. Honestly, it was a bloody miracle they'd made it this far without Sirius bringing that up again.

Finally, when they were all calm again, Harry finally managed to continue, still eager to read about this new girl. He just knew he knew her.

"Wait, wait, back up," Lily quirked a brow, "how was she doing spells and they worked without her getting in trouble?"

Harry puzzled on whether he'd ever asked her this, but James quickly waved her off and said, "she obviously means on the train Lily, probably before Neville came to find her and ask for her help. Don't take everything so literally."

"What?" Remus spluttered. Surely she couldn't mean she'd actually memorized all the books by heart.

"She can't mean that," Lily said, smiling indulgently, "there's coming prepared, and then there's just over achieving to the extreme."

"I'm pretty sure she's serious," Harry agreed, following his gut feeling on that one.

Sirius opened his mouth again, but James quickly cut him off, "alright Sirius, you got to do it once for Harry, but you are not making that crack every time."

Sirius huffed, and muttered, "you're just jealous you can't have your own running gag."

Lily twitched, looking like she dearly wanted to hex him, as that wasn't really an 'okay I'll stop' but with her son on his chest, she was a bit constrained.

"Oh I'm sure that will be quite enough," James agreed with her random worry.

Harry yelped again as if he'd just been electrified at finally getting her name, Hermione Granger, the book falling out of his hand again. However at the concerned looks crossing all of their faces, Harry quickly reassured, "I know, no pushing it. But I was right, I do know her. We're friends too, just like me and Ron are, I'm positive of it."

Lily smiled before saying, "That's lovely dear, I hope we get to meet them then."

Harry went to pick his book back up, which let him not see the looks all three boys were now exchanging. That had been quite the reaction, perhaps Harry was a little more than friends with this girl.

"No one has memorized all the course books by heart," Sirius agreed with Harry and Ron's shock. "Not even Remus was ever that bad."

"Thanks, I think," he muttered.

"Guess I'm not surprised Harry's wound up in a few of his own books," Lily said, with some real interest.

James grimaced, as if he'd just been punched in the gut all over again. He'd always wanted to be famous, but not like this. Certainly not at the cost of his own son being shoved into this role. What a twist of irony.

"Don't blame you there one bit," Remus agreed, he could understand anyone being dazed by all that, and he wasn't having to hear about it from her mouth.

"Which is true," Sirius said at once to the news of Dumbledore being in Gryffindor and it seeming like the best house.

"Don't be biased Sirius, you said you'd outgrown that," Lily frowned at him.

"Some things never fade," he said in a tragic type of voice.

"What house were you lot in?" Harry asked curiously, realizing they'd never told him when he asked earlier.

"Gryffindor," they all said together.

James quickly jumped in, when he saw the look on Harry's face, "but we don't care what house you're in. No matter what, we just hope you're happy."

"Even with Slytherin or Hufflepuff?" Harry asked, eyeing Sirius warily.

Sirius snorted, looking genuinely offended the kid had to ask. "Of course, you'd be the bloody best Slytherin I ever met. Plus I dated a Hufflepuff for three years, yeah they're just as much fun."

Harry beamed at him, causing a warmth to build up in Sirius. He hadn't realized how much that had been bothering him.

Harry frowned a bit now, he had thought there was something else that had happened on this train ride. Just an odd sort of feeling, maybe he had it wrong considering Neville and Hermione were leaving and the school was nearly in sight.

For some reason Ron's comment about not being in the same house as the bossy girl made Harry want to laugh, like he had a feeling Ron would regret saying that someday, but he repressed even the thought of saying it as his head still hurt slightly from the last thing he'd remembered to soon.

"Well falling for that fake spell is just a bit of his own fault," Remus chuckled. "If Ron hasn't cottoned on by now that he shouldn't be taking them too literally, then I can't say I pity him much."

"Blind faith in your siblings I suppose," James said absentmindedly.

"Honestly, I'll bet they have given him real spells before, but also give him trick spells," Sirius said wisely with a knowing smirk in place showing he may have some experience with this. "Can't always be caught lying or he'd know never to believe them, I'll bet you anything he just chose a dud instead of a real spell they would have shown him."

Lily didn't look nearly as impressed as Sirius thought she should have for this bit of wisdom.

"Those stereotypes of the different houses clearly haven't gotten any better over the years," James laughed as Ron said much the same as Hagrid had.

"Oh tons of careers are possible for your future," Lily said, eyes brightening at once when Harry changed the subject to again referring to Ron's oldest siblings and what they did out of school.

"Now Lily," James said sternly.

Sirius continued for him, just as stern, "if we can't educate him on Quidditch, there's no way we're going to let you go on for an hour about every job you'd like to have."

Lily frowned at the pair, but conceded now wasn't the best time to go into excruciating details.

Forestalling her Harry said, "it's okay, you can tell me later."

"Ha!" Sirius cried, throwing one arm up in the air in triumph the moment it was confirmed the Weasley who'd given up his wand worked with dragons; while admittedly, his cry of triumph wasn't nearly as loud as normal. He didn't want to wake baby Harry after all, "didn't I tell you."

"Yes fine," James conceded.

"You see Remus, Africa." James said sadly when Bill Weasley's employment with Gringotts was revealed. "You really want to travel that far?" James said sadly.

Remus chose to say nothing, feeling now wasn't the time for this conversation either.

"Now who was suicidal enough to do try breaking into Gringotts?" Lily demanded in surprise when Ron shared that titbit.

"Got turned into a crispy critter most likely," Sirius said absently, when Harry asked what could have happened to them, really with all the treasure down there, he wasn't too surprised it had happened, though he rarely heard of it considering how well everyone knew it was guarded.

"Really?" They all said in surprise that nothing had happened because of this break in, now this was unheard of.

"That must be driving the Goblins crazy," Remus murmured.

"Oh I'm sure it's nothing to do with Voldemort coming back," James said at once, seeing Lily go pale. "No, I'm sure it's nothing. Probably something Ron just wanted to talk about to change the subject."

Lily nodded, and slightly relaxed, but none of them really believed this. Ron was right, it would take some real Dark magic to pull off a stunt like this.

Harry was turning all of this over in his mind, feeling like there was some sort of significance to this tale, but having no way to know what.

"A prickle of fear is how it starts," Remus agreed sadly, wincing as he too began to worry if Harry was going to start referring to him as You-Know-Who regularly in here as well, they'd be dealing with a lot of wincing from him considering their habit of doing the opposite.

"I don't see why they can't call him Voldemort now?" James asked. "Voldemort's been dead for eleven years. You'd think that old superstition would die."

Lily rolled her eyes to the ceiling, contemplating the pros and cons of explaining, again, what just wouldn't sink into these boys' minds. Yes they were brave, sometimes idiotically so, and yes they feared Voldemort as much as any proper wizard did. What they didn't understand was that calling him You-Know-Who was sort of like a coping mechanism.

Finally, as Harry decided to keep going, she decided against it.

"Wish you would have gone into more detail about what Ron shared with you involving the Quidditch at least," Sirius said enviously.

"I'm just happy someone is explaining this all properly to him," James said with glee, watching Harry's face as he slowly nodded to himself as Ron's details came rushing back to him now.

"Whoever it is coming in now, I'm automatically annoyed," Sirius sniffed. "They interrupted Harry's very important Quidditch education."

"I'm pretty sure that's the first, and last time you've ever said important and education in the same sentence," Remus told him.

"Well he clearly knows who you are now," Lily said sadly when it was revealed to be the boy from Madam Malkins, now accompanied with two brutishly described boys.

"Let's see how much his attitude changed," James grumbled.

"Great, yeah. I was right, I hate him," Sirius snarled as soon as his name was revealed. Harry on the other hand, was having another of his more painful reactions. However, the more often this happened, the more easily he could discipline his mind, almost as if he'd had practice with it. He schooled himself, so that the pain he was feeling at such sharp memories trying to force their way into the foreground, faded and became as blocked as before. After only a few brief moments of electrifying pain, he eased back, though with a frown on his face this time.

"That's not a good look," Remus observed, "though I'm quite proud that you seem to be getting a handle on this memory bogging issue, normally when it happens it's been something good. You trusted Hagrid, then Ron, now this new girl. Is it safe to say you're not good friends with the Malfoy boy then?"

"Very safe," Harry assured, feeling anger and several other emotions cropping up just at the mention of his name.

"Well I'm glad to hear it," James said at once. "The Malfoy's are known Voldemort supporters. At least among the Order. I don't like to judge a child, but if he's anything like his father..." he trailed off with a muttered curse.

Lily frowned sternly at her husband trying to pass on a prejudice, if perhaps this child could be different, and said, "Now James-"

But Sirius and Remus were quick to back up their friend, giving her quite a bit of evidence at least of the Malfoy they knew. After a bit of mulling over, Lily finally nodded and said, "yes alright. I'm glad as well, here's hoping Harry sticks with Ron then." At least she was secure in knowing Harry had a good solid friend already from reputation, and though she hated to judge that way, it wouldn't feel like a good omen if a child of such a Voldemort supporter became close with her boy. If she happened to be wrong though, and their first impression was all wrong and he was trying to be a good lad, she'd also reserve the right to call them all out.

"I'm positive I will," Harry sighed, wishing he could do more then go on a feeling, but pressing on all the same.

All five people in the room frowned, as if they needed evidence to back up Harry's bad feelings, which they didn't, here it was right out of the boy's mouth saying all that about the Weasleys.

"Very good instincts then," James approved when Harry refused the handshake.

"He's just insulted my new, and first friend," Harry agreed, "I didn't like him much at all." 'And the feelings only get worse' he mentally added on, but declined mentioning that in case he was wrong.

"And snippy as his mother," Sirius chuckled when Harry gave such a retort of knowing the wrong sorts.

"Oi!" They all hooted in indignation at this little brat taking such a shot at Harry's parents!

"Honestly, is Harry the only boy around with manners then?" Lily demanded.

"Why that little-" James muttered, his fists clenching up at once as if he were suddenly eleven years old again, and Severus had just insulted his pureblood status.

"While he is in the wrong," Lily said at once, as they had all stiffened up slightly, "I don't really think fighting it out is the answer."

"Says the girl who once set a cat after a certain Slytherin girl who called her a two timer after she started going out with a certain Potter?" Sirius asked casually.

"A cat that you had transfigured from that girl's hat I might add," Remus smiled.

Lily went a bit red about the ears, and declined further comment.

"I'm sure you can still take them," James said with confidence, no matter how Crabbe and Goyle were described. "You've probably got a bit of practice taking down bigger blokes from Dudley. Plus Malfoy should be no problem, I'll bet you anything that pampered git hasn't had a fight in his life."

Harry cleared his throat softly and said, "erm no, at least to the part about Dudley. I've never actually tried fighting back at him, he is a lot bigger than me, and if I'd won, I'd have only been punished for it."

James deflated at once, and Harry quickly hurried on before he could ask anything else, "but you're probably right about Malfoy. He seems the type."

For some odd reason, this didn't actually make James feel better, but he let Harry keep reading to see what would happen.

"Accidental magic you suppose?" Remus asked when Goyle seemingly jumped away from the sweets for no reason.

Sirius rolled his eyes, once again avoiding the temptation to point out that none of them actually knew the answer to that.

"Alright!" all four boys cheered the moment the culprit was revealed to be Scabbers.

"Now I really, really wish Peter were here for that," James cackled.

"Oh yes, why didn't we ever think of that," Sirius agreed, holding the baby to his chest to stop himself from rolling around in laughter.

Even Remus was cracking up at this, deciding those boys had just learned a valuable lesson about food that wasn't theirs.

Now all the boys were frowning, a might concerned. They didn't want Scabbers to get hurt after achieving that kind of victory, and they weren't sure what being thrown into a window would do to an ordinary rat.

The fact that he'd only fallen asleep caused a fresh round of laughter from them all, even Lily giggled a bit at this.

James was leaning back into the couch, which was clearly the only thing keeping him upright, as he said, "Oh man, getting back at those nitwits, and going right back to take a nap. This rat has it good."

Harry jolted, feeling another shock strike him. Why though? He hadn't thought much of Ron's rat, why would he? Yet at his father's words, he felt a sense of wronged, like this rat should not have any kind of good life. Why though? After all, Harry had no doubts that his feelings about Ron being his best friend were completely true, why would he wish ill will on his pet.

Perhaps Scabbers had once bitten him, and he was harboring a grudge? This must be it, so he decided not to press on the matter too much.

"Not surprised the Malfoys faked their way out of trouble," Sirius muttered darkly when Ron gave Harry details of this particular family.

"Hermione's got a point," Lily said in defence when she reappeared as if just to scold the boys, as at once the four boys looked about to defending themselves for the fight.

Remus chuckled a bit at the dirt on Ron's nose being pointed out like that. While she had a small bit of a personality issue, it was clear she'd be fun to have around. If only for her outward going nature.

Harry on the other hand was frowning. He was so sure of his feelings towards Hermione, that she was going to be a friend of his. Yet what he felt now, was annoyance at such a bossy sort of girl, shaking his head slightly, perhaps she was just as nervous as he was, he kept going to say his exit from the train.

Lily felt like doing a little happy dance, finally her little Hare Bare was at Hogwarts. She was so grateful for these books being here, to show her what it was like for him. Circumstances that led this to happening aside for now.

They all smiled to themselves again, happy that Hagrid's affection towards Harry hadn't lessened any now that the boy wasn't his responsibility anymore. His still singling Harry out with a greeting gave them all the same smile as their boy.

"Poor dear," Lily wanted to give Neville a hug for still sniffling, "his first day there should be exciting, not miserable."

"Harry's just lucky it's a nice night out," Remus laughed, "they all should. Remember our sixth year, it was pouring down so bad, the teachers considered not even using the boats for the first years."

"Yes well, the squid spit that kid out in the end, so it was alright," James said, smiling in agreement and laughter.

"Is there ever not a gasp of surprise at first seeing the castle?" Sirius smiled in remembrance.

All four adults smiled with both happy and sad memories mixed together, despite everything that had happened there, they all loved that school.

Harry too was smiling to himself, but it was all with happiness. Home. That one word came to mind for him like nothing before ever had. This was Hogwarts, his home.

"Remember that's how we met Peter," James and Sirius smiled at each other as the boats were being emptied.

Sirius laughed a bit saying, "'Course I do. Puny little kid he was. His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head."

"Oh that's wonderful!" Lily cried in joy the moment Hagrid found the missing toad at the bottom of a boat.

"You are way too invested in this boy's toad," James told his wife indulgently, it was one of the things he loved about her, how she seemed to care for everyone endlessly.

Lily simply kept smiling, knowing full well her husband meant nothing by his comment.

"I am curious though," Remus said, "how it got lost on the train, but ended up in the boats."

"Maybe one of the other students found it, and were taking it up to the school," Sirius offered, "then it slipped away from them to."

"Tricky little pet he is," James laughed.

They all laughed a bit at Hagrid reaching the school doors and double checking Neville still had his Trevor. Hagrid was such a caring person, and he did love all of the creatures at Hogwarts, even a random first year student's toad.

"That's the end of the chapter," Harry told them, looking about, and smiling so much his face looked like it was about to fall off. "Who's turn now?"

"No, no," Lily said, getting up from the couch, and offering her hand to Harry, "mark the place, and we should all get some shut eye, it has been the most bizarre day of my life, and I can't be the only one exhausted from all of this."

James quickly agreed with her, and after a moment's more hesitation and a longing look at the books, the keys to his memories, he agreed and took her hand. Lily and James led Harry upstairs to a guest room, and made sure he got settled in for the night.

Sirius and Remus on the other hand, were exchanging meaningful looks, and decided they needed to have a talk with James and Lily before they too hit the sack.

* * *

 

 

To all who are worried by the way, this is going to be as canon as possible, which means this isn't Harry/ Hermione like some of the adults make jokes about over some of the series. They're doing that purely out of the ignorance that a boy and girl can't just be friends. I promise, you'll see much more instances of Harry finding any mention of Ginny more adorable then taking notice of his family's teasing.


	8. THE SORTING HAT

Only after Lily had taken baby Harry from Sirius and put him into his crib in his own room did the four sit and have a long, extensive talk. Discussing everything they had read so far, the good, and through a lot of teeth gritting and cursing, the bad. After their discussion, they then came to the conclusion that they wouldn't hide anything from this Harry. They hadn't really planned on it before, but deep down they all wondered one thing. What if Harry couldn't get back to his own time?

What if he was stuck here with them? Sure he'd have all his memories of his old life back, but none of them even knew for certain how he'd come here. Time travel was the sketchiest part of any magic, and even the Department of Mysteries had only begun testing it, and they weren't very forthcoming with what they had. If this ended up being the case, then after they read these books they would have to come up with some sort of alibi for Harry.

Agreeing about more details on that later, they then briefly spoke of this supposed Death Eater that had followed through with Harry, here into this time as well. They were all convinced that the magical spells surrounding the house would have alerted them if there was someone here who shouldn't be, and to make sure they even went back over them. Nothing came of it; Harry was their only uninvited guest.

The topic did briefly come up of how, of all the places Harry could have landed, the boy ended up here. It was quite a coincidence, and none of them really believed in coincidences. Perhaps after Harry had his full memories back he could explain this, or at least they hoped so, because now they all felt a bit less secure here.

They talked long into the night, until finally Remus almost cracked his jaw yawning. Lily demanded they all go to bed, having meant what she'd told Harry, this had been the longest day of her life, and surely the others as well.

After a brief conversation, Remus and Sirius decided they would kip here for the night, Sirius merely slumping back on the couch, and tossing his feet out and claiming it as his. Remus took the hint and decided to use the other guest room for the night.

Up the stairs in his very own room, still an odd idea to Harry fresh from his memories of a solid ten years at the Dursleys, he was having a very restless night. He heard the whispers downstairs but thought nothing much of them past his worry of the trouble he was causing them. His utter faith in their company though wasn't helping to settle his mind, full of feelings he just couldn't quite get a grasp on. There was a sense of urgency still hovering just out of sight, there was still something very important he should be doing and it wasn't getting his memories back, but of course he couldn't know what any of this meant until he did, it was all very confusing. When he did finally doze off, it was full of unpleasant reminders from his childhood, something he may have been happier forgetting all the times he'd been shoved headfirst into his cupboard and other goings on of that place. Mixed in though was Ron's smiling face, and the breathless chatting of the bushy haired girl Hermione. His assurance of Ron being his friend lingered, and even in the depths of his ream cycles this other girl lingered on the same level even if he couldn't grasp why.

The next morning, once they'd all awoken and had a bit of breakfast, Remus disclosed his full story to Harry, and James and Sirius often jumped in. Harry beamed and laughed along, finally understanding and looking as if a great relief had been lifted from his shoulders. Telling them all that this made him happy and feel whole once more did puzzle them a bit, since Harry had only felt like this before when a strong memory had been returned to him. They knew that all the Marauders were dead in Harry's time, so they were the only ones that could give Harry this story. Where then would he have heard it to be now hearing it again?

Knowing there was nothing to it and no reason to ask the boy, they decided instead to gently ease into the topic of the Dursleys. Harry made to clench up at once, but they were all quick to reassure him. In fact they spent most of the morning trying to get him to warm up to them, and after only a few hours they seemed to have made a bit of progress in convincing him that what the Dursley's had done to him, was indeed wrong.

Harry still insisted that they hadn't left any lasting damage on him, but confided a few details he had neglected to tell them during the reading of the second chapter. Taking this as a small victory for now, they decided not to push their luck on what was clearly years of an embedded nature of secrecy.

They all went back to the living room and Remus volunteered to read this time, while Harry managed to slip in one more question. "Where is this Peter I've heard so much about? I'd very much like to meet him."

"A very good question," Sirius agreed, looking towards the door with just a hint of worry now.

"I sent him an owl before I went to bed last night," Lily quickly reassured. "If he doesn't answer by the end of the day, then you three can start panicking." She'd meant it in a light teasing type way, but she knew that these four had never gone longer than a week tops without speaking to each other. Therefore, any prolonged absence would worry each of them. After taking the same seats as before, Remus gave himself a firm shake and then began in bright tones.

"I hope you followed that first impression on McGonagall," Lily said, wanting very much for her son not to turn out like his father and be in detention more than out of it.

"Not surprised McGonagall's still there," Sirius said grinning, "she loves that school and every student in there."

Harry smiled to himself; the more he heard about this castle the better he was feeling. This sounded like a wondrous place, possibly full of the best of his memories.

"I feel like, for every point I made for our house, you lot made us lose five," Lily said in exasperation as their old head of house began explaining the system of the school, it was a wonder they ever won the house cup with them around.

"You know you enjoyed watching the shows though," James said cheekily. Lily pressed her lips together in an effort to hide her smile.

"Why would you try to flatten your hair?" James laughed. "There's no bloody point. Honestly, after a while I did the opposite," he said, running his hand through his hair backwards for emphasis.

"One of the most annoying of your many annoying habits," Lily grumbled with some soft affection.

"Nerves," Harry answered his father, thinking back to how the Dursley's often kept their hair flattened in an attempt to impress. He must have gotten that from them.

"Does she really give the same speech every year?" Remus chuckled. "That was almost word perfect to the same one she gave us."

"McGonagall has always been a bit of a traditionalist," Sirius reminded him, smiling slightly.

Harry went a bit wide eyed in fear for a moment, not at all sure Fred was kidding about some part of this hurting, but when the other four burst out laughing, he decided it really must be something he wasn't as familiar with, this playful teasing they all did around him. James was quick to reassure, "don't worry Harry, it doesn't hurt one bit."

"But you still won't tell me?" Harry wheedled a bit.

"Where would be the fun in that?" Sirius chuckled.

"It's tradition," James agreed with a smirk. "You're not supposed to ruin what happens, why do you think Ron doesn't know either?" Harry decided instead of arguing, he'd let the book tell him.

"No, no," Lily said quickly, as she saw Harry's rising panic on his face, not that she could blame him with the thought of having to do magic in front of the school now on his mind. "It's alright dear, nothing like that," after casting a quick look round at the boys, who were all shaking their heads and silently pleading her not to tell she finally sighed and said, "it doesn't hurt and it's not a test. I promise."

Harry relaxed again and asked Remus to go on.

"Do we even want to know what happened with a blue wig at this point?" James groaned.

Harry pressed his lips together for a moment, but after remembering the breakfast they'd all just had, he finally admitted to them the whole story. A student had been cheating off his test, and when he'd told him to stop it the boy quickly cried out that Harry had been the one cheating. The teacher had believed him instead of Harry, and Harry had been so mad he'd turned his teachers wig blue, though of course neither of them understood how at the time.

The teacher told the principal Harry had done it during their lunch break and that he must have somehow poured blue dye on it, and the principal had believed the teacher instead of Harry. After going home and having to get a signature from either his aunt or uncle, he'd been locked up in his cupboard for the night, but that was the only punishment he'd received. Because the principal had been convinced it was something as ordinary as acting out, Uncle Vernon chose to believe this as well. Therefore, in this particular moment, he must not have blamed Harry's magical background.

Harry hadn't bothered to correct him, even if he'd known he should have, he wouldn't. All four adults once again felt a downpour of emotions at yet another instance where, not only did no one believe Harry when he'd done nothing wrong, but he had been punished for something he'd had no control over. It was as wrong as every other instance they'd heard, but all they could do now was chalk it up to another moment they would like to take revenge on. For now, Remus decided to keep going.

Sirius forced out a bit of laughter at this kid describing all of this as his doom, saying, "bit melodramatic eh?"

"All eleven year olds are melodramatic," Lily smiled indulgently.

When Remus had kept going only to describe children screaming in fright and Harry nearly jumping out of his skin, Harry was stunned to see hardly anyone react past saying, "The ghosts," all at once, causing all of them to start laughing.

In explanation to Harry's very confused face Remus told him, "Oh right, yeah there are ghosts at the castle."

"Okay," Harry drew the word out, but decided this was no weirder then everything else that had happened to him.

"Peeves again," Sirius rolled his eyes, "I hope he never does learn."

"Wonder what he did this time," James said with pure curiosity of what had made the ghosts run late to the feast because of that Poltergeist.

"Only you four," Lily shook her head at the ceiling. Harry briefly wondered who Peeves was, but since the book was clearly talking about him now, he decided to let Remus keep going.

"Like he doesn't know what the group of first years are doing in the same antechamber they're in every year," James snickered.

"If McGonagall hadn't come back, all of the ghosts would have started introducing themselves," Sirius laughed.

"There, you see," Lily beamed when Hermione went into detail of why the ceiling reflected the sky above because of yet more books she'd read. "I'm not the only one who enjoys outsource reading."

"Lily, you were never this bad," James told her knowledgeably, willing to put money that this girl would be a Ravenclaw, it already showed that she treasured knowledge greatly.

"Lucky it doesn't just open up to the sky come winter," Sirius said.

The four adults grimaced at Harry comparing the Sorting Hat to what Aunt Petunia would have thought of it, hoping it wouldn't take too long for Harry to stop taking their minds back to that place. They all looked to Harry, who was looking as confused as he must have on that day.

They all smiled to themselves, pleased beyond measure that they could witness this.

"That's seventh year magic that is," James said, shaking his head, "trying to conjure a rabbit out of nothing."

"Unless he means turning the hat into a rabbit," Sirius offered, "still advanced though. Like second year at least." Lily rolled her eyes at the pair, and declined to mention that this was just simply something muggles did. Remus ignored them as well and just kept going.

"Sing?" Harry interrupted, his mouth going a little slack at that.

"Yes Harry, sing," James said with high amusement, "keep going Remus." Remus took one more moment to capture this memory, of Harry's confusion and delight at a talking magical hat, but then hesitated and read.

"Oh Remus no," the boys groaned, "you've got to sing it."

"No way," Remus said at once, going a bit red in the face, "I'm not that good a singer, so just let it go." Then he started over from the first line and read.

Insert first Sorting Hat Song.

Both Sirius and James huffed in annoyance, and vowed that if they were lucky enough to get the sorting hat's song next year, they would sing along. Harry on the other hand was mulling over everything the hat had just said. So all you had to do was try on the hat? Oh, he couldn't wait to find out what house he was in. Despite all of their reassurances, he really hoped he was in Gryffindor like the rest of his family.

"That's brilliant, wrestling a troll!" Sirius cackled, "Wish I could have fooled Regulus into thinking that."

"Poor boy needs to learn not to take them at word," James said fondly.

"Don't worry dear," Lily said, "the Hat doesn't take how you're feeling at the moment, it-"

James quickly cut her off saying, "Lily, we don't need an hour long lecture on the magic of how that hat works. Please, I want to know what house Harry's in." Lily threw him a dirty look but nodded, eager to learn this as well.

"Queasy would be the one for everyone," Sirius laughed.

Harry looked very intrigued at the idea of it simply slipping over his head; it seemed rather simple, and far better than anything he was imagining moments ago.

"Sounds familiar," Lily muttered, knowing at least, James and Sirius started catcalling every year starting their second.

"Got to make them feel welcomed," they said at the same time.

"Oh don't start thinking of the Slytherin's like that," Lily said, frowning at once. "It is possible to make friends outside of your own house." Harry gave her a strange look, she seemed rather defensive of the subject, but as the other three all simply rolled their eyes at her, Harry decided to say nothing.

Lily smiled at his observation of the Hat's time process for every student and said, "It's all to do with the hat's process of-"

"Lily," all three boys said at once, Lily pouted but let the reading continue.

When Seamus Finnigan was singled out as having a full minute under the hat, Lily leaned over and quickly whispered in Harry's ear, "it's to do with their personality. Every person has the potential traits for all four houses, and the Hat decides which one would suit that person best. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it takes a bit of work for it to figure out."

Harry nodded and had been listening so intently, he almost didn't hear Remus say it was Hermione's turn, which took just as long as the last student before she was sorted into Gryffindor.

"Really?" All four adults said together, while Harry smiled brightly. He knew his instincts about this girl had been correct.

"Guess I had her pegged wrong," Sirius acknowledged.

"Which is why you don't sort people," James laughed.

"No person has ever not been chosen for a house in Hogwarts history," Lily said at once, as nerves looked to be coming over her son again at this idea.

"They'd never tell you some mistake had been made and send you back to the Dursleys," James vowed, not even wanting to think on it.

"Longbottom?" They all said together in shock when Neville's first name was called out.

"So that is Alice and Frank's boy," James said with a bit of unease, remembering the train scene. Perhaps Harry hadn't been the only boy to lose his parents during this awful war.

Knowing the Longbottom's pretty well, Sirius really didn't want to think another good family had been destroyed, so he quickly said, "Yes well, I'm sure that older woman dropping him off was just the one time thing. Since they're both Aurors, I mean that can be a very demanding job I'm sure..." but as he trailed off, even he could hear the falseness in his own words.

Sighing deeply, Remus decided he wasn't going to jump to any conclusions, so he just kept going. Harry was frowning to himself a bit, thinking for what felt like the hundredth time that he should know the answer to this, yet once again it was escaping him. He really hoped this feeling would either wear off already, or stop cropping up.

James and Sirius were both chuckling at the idea of a student running off with the hat, this was original and something they'd never seen and those moments were always a joy to them.

James dearly wanted to make a comment how it was no surprise Malfoy wound up in Slytherin, but kept his mouth shut for Lily's sake.

"Yes," all four adults said eagerly when it was finally Harry's turn. Harry tried to feel the same even as a small frown dampened his spirits just a bit, hoping all this whispering would get out of the students now, and knowing full well it wouldn't.

"That sounded like a general mix of all the houses," Lily said, intrigued at once at the houses description of her boy. Her enthusiasm was diminished at once upon Harry's request for any house but Slytherin. "Oh Harry," Lily groaned, rubbing at her own temple. She wished he wouldn't judge the whole house by such rumors.

Harry squirmed awkwardly for a moment before profusely apologizing. He was having another of those feelings telling him already to agree with her.

"Yes," all four boys cried as one the moment Harry was given their old house, looking abundantly pleased despite what they had said. Even Lily couldn't deny how happy she was her boy wound up in her house. Although she still couldn't shake the feeling that, perhaps if Harry hadn't been brave enough to put up his opinion, he would have wound up in Slytherin. Oh well, no need to ponder it now.

"You know, that's a lot of what happened to me," Sirius said brightly. "The hat said I should go into Slytherin as well, but I fought back same as you pup." He grinned over at his godson with real pride for the first time, and Harry beamed right back.

"And I thank Merlin for that every day," James laughed, his best friend and him sharing a grin, "or I'm sure our school life would have been much different."

"I'll second that," Remus agreed, shuddering a bit as he kept reading past a ghost trying to shake Harry's hand.

Harry grimaced and rubbed his hand, clearly remembering that feeling all over again of having his hand dunked in cold water.

"Maybe Quirrell wears that turban to impress the students," Lily said with a touch of concern, as Harry had once again grimaced in pain and began rubbing his temple in agitation.

"Yeah, suppose so," he agreed halfheartedly, unable to shake the feeling there was something important about that turban.

"Quirrell's still the only new teacher," Sirius piped up, trying to change the subject, "and the only new one I'm hoping. Since I rather liked all of my teachers."

"Couldn't tell that at school," Remus chuckled.

"Poor Ron, being one of the last," James said sadly.

"Remember our sixth year and that kid whose last name was Zabini." Sirius laughed. "Poor thing vomited because she was the last one."

"Yes, well, I'm sure the Hufflepuffs didn't hold that against her," Lily chuckled.

Harry beamed the moment Remus read out the next part, and they were all happy that Harry's new friend had joined him in their old house.

"Would you look at that," James said without much interest as Zabini, Blaise the last student was sorted into Slytherin.

"Those snacks from the train always feel ages ago by that time," Sirius agreed, rubbing his stomach.

"I always choose laughter at Dumbledore's opening speech," James said, laughing even now at both Dumbledore's seemingly random words, and his son's expression of it.

"Perhaps a tad mad," Sirius said, cracking a small smile, "but we don't hold it against him."

"So was that a yes, or a no on his mental status?" Remus asked, grinning with the others.

"I'll stand by what I said," Sirius told him.

"What if someone was allergic to something in the midst of this feast?" Harry asked at random, remembering a day in his school cafeteria.

"The parents inform the school ahead of time, and it's taken up with the kitchens," Remus said with a shrug. He'd never looked into the matter personally, but since there had never been an instance, he was sure the house elves knew what they were doing.

"Dumbledore loves peppermint humbugs," Lily told him, grinning down at her boys grossed out look. She'd never been brave enough to try them, but Sirius had, and pleasantly informed all of them they'd tasted like toothpaste. None of them were endeared to try it after that.

All four adults then pursed their lips, thinking to themselves that rationing food as a punishment was akin to starving in their books, but letting it slide for now. They trusted that Harry had told them the truth about the Dursleys doing otherwise.

"Is there anything awful that child hasn't done?" James demanded in disgust the new idea presented of Dudley eating Harry's favorite foods simply so Harry couldn't was still a new level of awful.

"Well I'm glad he's eating his fill now." Sirius muttered, still wanting to knock that family a good one.

Remus and Lily simply decided to keep that opinion to themselves, as Harry was looking a bit peaky again.

"Why does he say ghost of Gryffindor Tower?" Harry asked, "Can't all the ghosts go anywhere in the castle they please?"

"Yes," said Remus, "but there's at least one ghost who represents every house, as a sort of guide if you will. Nick's ours. The Fat Friar is Hufflepuffs, the Grey Lady's Ravenclaws, and the Bloody Baron is Slytherins." Harry nodded with interest, but let Remus keep going.

"Nearly headless?" Harry asked, "How can he be nearly headless?"

"Oh he tells that story every year," Sirius laughed with remembrance. "I always made it a point to sit near a first year at start of term so I could see this."

"He's faking looking miffed," James laughed, "he loves showing off."

All three boys laughed boyishly as, once again, they got to witness a first year with a gaping mouth at this revelation. Yes, Harry may be older now than he was then, but that look never got old.

"Wow," Lily said, raising a brow, "Slytherin's almost got a record, six years like that. Two more, and they'll have beaten it."

"Let's hope it doesn't keep then," James said with a groan of disgust.

"We have asked the Bloody Barron how he got that blood," all three boys said some variation of this once.

"Why am I not surprised?" Lily asked the ceiling.

"He wouldn't tell us though," Sirius said with regret, "one of the most bloody annoying things about our seventh year. We tried everything, got every ghost there to tell us how they died in one way or another. Sadly, both the Grey Lady, and The Barron, never spilled." Harry was twitching again in real agitation, but as he had no way to really explain that he felt he knew the answers to this as well, he simply remained quiet.

"Please Remus, you're torturing me," Sirius groaned, now clutching his stomach as if in real pain at all of this food being described.

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but just then a wail came from upstairs. Taking the excuse, Sirius lunged to his feet and had barreled up the stairs before either parent had any chance to react. Sirius came down a few moments later with a bright eyed baby, cooing to him about how baby Harry had saved Uncle Sirius from 'mean old Uncle Remus and his 'torturing'. Remus just rolled his eyes and kept going as Sirius plopped himself down on the love seat with the toddler.

Remus nodded sagely to the commentary of families, Seamus' in particular having him say, "Yeah, my dad didn't tell my mum he was a wizard until he accidentally got her pregnant. Perhaps not the best time to inform her, but there you go." James and Sirius had heard this before, but Lily and Harry couldn't help but giggle a bit at this.

The moment Neville had his turn by being mentioned as raised by his grandmother, all four adults paled as they came to the horrid conclusion that Neville had lost his parents in some way, same as Harry. None of them said anything however, as Harry already looked troubled enough by this news, and they all comforted themselves with a reminder that they were going to change this.

"Really now," Lily said, frowning severely, "magic comes with age. You shouldn't try and force it out any more then you should try stamping it out." The other three all agreed. Perhaps it was the over lingering hatred of how the Dursley's had treated Harry, but they all felt a bit sensitive on the subject now. Remus quickly read on, but wasn't any more happy to hear of Neville being shoved out a window. Now all four adults looked ready to breathe fire. Really now, did they have to set up a whole new division in the ministry just to prevent child abuse!

"Still doesn't excuse the act itself," they all muttered in agreement no matter Neville had bounced at the end.

"There's no such thing as not magic enough," Lily said at once. "Often magic abilities can be latent, not appearing at all until harnessed through the use of a wand."

"It's okay Lily," Remus said, trying to sooth what looked like a full-blown tangent, "the boy got in. Hold your very loud and persuasive arguments for work eh?" Lily huffed and sat back, letting him go on. Sirius and James both threw him 'thank you' looks.

"Aced the first class at once," Sirius said with pride at remembering the grin he'd gotten from McGonagall turning his match into a needle on the first try.

James blinked several times, clearly startled at the description of a hooked nose and greasy black hair. Then said quite loudly, "Oh bloody hell, you must be joking?"

"There's no way," Sirius groaned, letting his head fall back against the cushions, "someone please tell me Harry just has an extremely ugly teacher, who resembles an old Slytherin I never want to see again!"

"This can't be happening," Remus said at once, a bit of an edge in his voice, "like Harry needs to put up with-"

"Enough," Lily said at once, glaring around at all of them. Privately Lily was doing quite the happy dance in her head. Last she had heard of her old friend, he had gone and joined a group of Death Eater's! Yet if this really was who she was hoping it was, then surely Dumbledore wouldn't have hired someone who supported Voldemort. So if this was him, then surely Severus had changed his ways over the years. Forcing herself to keep her mind on track, she turned back to find the boys still mutinously muttering as she said, "Leave it be until we know for sure." None of them agreed, but let it slide until they were sure. Harry still wondered what they were even talking about, but kept it to himself.

"What?" All four said at once, instantly distracted from the drama of old school mates if that's even who it was.

"Scar's shouldn't burn," Lily said at once, fear lacing her tone, "did it hurt again, just now?"

"No," Harry said at once, though he did vividly remember that pain now, as if it had happened all over again.

The three boys exchanged fearful looks, but none of them knew what to make of this. After all, they weren't even one hundred percent sure how Harry had gotten that scar. Sure, the book said that was where Voldemort had tried to kill him, and the green light vaguely implied which spell he had tried to use. However, there was no way Harry had survived the killing curse. No one ever had. So there must have been some new spell he had used, one that had got around Harry. Perhaps the side effects of that were that it would randomly pain him in his life.

James asked, "Has it ever pained to you before this?"

"No," Harry said sadly, looking as lost as they do.

Sirius grimaced, wanting terribly to point out that he didn't think it was a coincidence that Harry would have this sudden pain the moment he looked at old Snivellus, there was no doubt of that description as far as he was concerned. He knew the telling off he'd get from Lily for saying that. With no other proof or facts to look at, Remus decided that he should keep going, and hope an explanation came about soon.

The next bit wasn't an encouraging start, as it only went back to mentioning this teacher they were now positive of the name of just by the lone description of his hateful look to Harry.

Lily pursed her lips, but refused to admit that these boys might be right. No, Severus was a better man than that, he had to be. All three boys muttered something about an understatement before going on.

"No," Lily said at once, not having to rejoice in this being Snape when it looked like these boys were going to start verbally abusing Severus. "I don't want to hear a word of it." After all, her old friend may harbor a grudge against this lot, and who could blame him, but it shouldn't affect Harry at all. She told them all as much, and all three boys gave her a look as if suddenly fearing for her health.

"You must be joking Lily," James said in exasperation, "Snape, not being a prat to my son. It's perfect for him to get his revenge and-"

"No," Lily said with such firmness, they all wanted to take a step back from her. "Severus would never take out his anger at you on a child. I know him better than that."

"Knew him," Sirius muttered bitterly to himself, thinking back to their fifth year when the two had quite the public falling out and never really made up. James and Remus on the other hand had a better sense than to argue with her about this, though they too agreed with Sirius. All three dearly hoped they were wrong of course, as they would never forgive themselves if Snape really were a prat to Harry just to get back at them. Wasn't the lot of them being dead good enough? They would have to hope so.

Harry was privately wondering through all of this, what was going on? There was clearly a back story here he hadn't been privy to. However, as his mother looked ready to burst into tears if the boys kept on this much longer, he said nothing, and instead wrapped his arm around her for comfort as Remus just decided to go on.

"I'm not surprised at all," Sirius huffed to himself. "He would go apply for the Dark Art's job. Thankfully Dumbledore saw his real talents as a scrawny Potions know it all git."

"That was probably the nicest thing you ever said about him," Lily said, half a reprimand, half a thank you.

"Told you we were getting better," James said brightly.

All three boys cracked up a bit at the comment of the Forbidden Forest being off limits, since all four friends had broken that rule their first night there. This had, incidentally, started a beautiful friendships. Harry even gave a small laugh at that, remembering them telling him this at breakfast. Lily simply shuddered in disgust. She had never set foot in that forest, and never intended to. It was creepy.

"Liking those twins more and more," James said with glee when Dumbledore's eyes had to linger on them to emphasize the warning.

"Argh, that old git Filch is still there," Sirius said in disgust.

"Filch isn't that bad," James said fairly, "so long as you know how to avoid him."

"You lot clearly weren't very good at that, as often as I saw him screaming at you," Lily laughed.

"Yes well, we had to let him catch us sometimes," Remus said, a sparkle of mischief clear in his eyes, "how else could we raid his office to get our stuff back?"

Lily groaned and put her face in her hands, deciding she didn't want to ask anymore.

"Oh good," James said with glee, "Madam Hooch is still there. At least I know Harry will get proper flying instructions then."

"I notice she's the only teacher there so far who you've given her title," Lily said, shaking her head sadly. "Is she really the only adult there you respected?"

"At the time," Sirius said slowly, "yes. But as we aged, we did come to respect all of our teachers for what they were."

"And we did call them properly in class, give us that," Remus said fairly. Lily again, simply rolled her eyes at her boys.

All four adults blinked, now very clearly startled at news to them of an out of bounds corridor on the third floor.

"I'm guessing that wasn't there when you were then?" Harry asked, rubbing his temple furiously again, talking seemed to help lessen the pain though.

"No, not at all," Sirius said, an old tone beginning to creep into his voice.

"No." Lily said at once, giving all three boys very stern looks.

"Sirius just said that Lily," James told her, trying to avoid her gaze.

"You know exactly what I mean James Potter," Lily said severely, throwing Harry a very worried glance. "I don't care what you lot got up to at school, can't do anything about it now, but I do not want Harry to go around, poking into things he shouldn't. Did you not hear the 'very painful death' part? He could get really hurt!"

"Oh relax Lily," Remus laughed at the way she made his two best friends look almost ashamed of themselves. "Harry's perfectly alive and healthy right there. I'm sure even if he did find out; he didn't come to any harm." Lily hardly looked nullified, but the other three boys looked quite pleased at Remus' logic.

Sirius was far too curious to hear if Dumbledore was going to elaborate then to make his preferred joke when Dumbledore was described as serious.

"Dumbledore does usually give a reason for things," Remus agreed with Percy, now frowning a bit himself. "I wonder why he wouldn't have told the Prefects what's going on in there?"

"All the more reason to stay away," Lily muttered, though she was clearly the only one thinking this.

"Oh come on," James and Sirius groaned, while Sirius said, "I'll bet you're not going to sing the school song either?"

"Of course not," Remus sniffed, "I've told you, I don't like singing."

At Harry's confused look, Lily told him, "Dumbledore has them sing the school song every seven years. Your father and Sirius loved singing it in this old dirge tone, being the last ones to stop. Remus and Peter on the other hand, tried their best to avoid the public eye, so they were a bit more, how shall I put this, reserved." Harry smiled at her, then around at the rest of them as the boys were still arguing. Finally, Remus cut off the argument, by simply reading as fast as he could.

Insert Hogwarts school song.

While James and Sirius looked genuinely hurt that they hadn't been allowed to do the tune that they had greatly enjoyed making up on the spot in their sixth year, Remus looked relieved that this should be the last time he'd have to avoid singing.

"Brilliant!" James and Sirius laughed to the Weasley twins idea of singing along to a funeral march.

"I swear, Dumbledore's the only one who ever enjoys that song," Lily chuckled.

"It didn't say, what tune did you do Harry?" Sirius asked brightly.

"I just kind of hummed along," Harry admitted. "I'm not much in the way of music either."

"Well, we can't all be The Three Toads," James said with a shrug. Harry blinked for a moment before deciding it must be some wizard band, and not asking about it.

All four adults looked like they wanted to laugh a bit at Harry's omission of not paying attention on the way to the tower. Harry really should have been paying attention to where he was going, or he was going to have a rough morning. It was too late now, however, to mention it.

"Raspberry's are Peeves favorite response really," Sirius chuckled.

"Ouch," James winced, "pulling the Baron card already? I think that's a bit unnecessary."

"He's trying to get the first years to bed," Lily said, "I'd be a bit curt with him to."

"Poor Neville, why was he the one to get those dropped on his head?" Sirius winced. "He seems to be getting the short end since this thing started." None of them had really gotten over the fact that he was an orphan too, just like their little Harry. They were hoping that Harry would make friends with him soon, it would make them all feel a bit better about it, if only slightly.

"Percy sure thinks a lot of his position," Remus said with a bit of a frown, after all if you let the position go to your head, you won't get any respect from the other students. Starting off by complaining to first years that the Poltergeist, who didn't listen to anyone, especially didn't listen to Prefects wasn't a good start.

Harry was grinning to himself, feeling very pleased with himself that he wasn't surprised one bit at the idea of a picture revealing something inside this castle.

"Well then, you should have fed Scabbers at dinner, then he wouldn't eat your sheets," Sirius interrupted with a small laugh, thinking back to all the great times he and his friends had shared in their dormitory.

"You can't transfer houses," James snorted at Harry's odd little dream.

"You're not feeling guilty about being in Gryffindor?" Lily asked with some concern, "because really sweetheart, the house doesn't matter. It's the person in the house."

"It's fine mum," Harry said, massaging his forehead again in a bit of pain, there was something important about this dream. Something he really should remember, but it just wasn't coming to him. "I'm sure it's like the book said. I just had a bit too much to eat. Strange sleeping place, all that's bound to give me a nightmare." Deciding to take this for what it was, Remus pressed on.

"Nightmare indeed," all three boys muttered, shaking themselves slightly. No one really wanted to dwell on that dream much.

"That's the end of the chapter." Remus said brightly, "Lily, did you want to go next?"

"Sure," she said, taking the book eagerly, wanting to get right to Harry's classes.


	9. THE POTIONS MASTER

Lily began with high spirits, wanting eagerly to know which classes her son would excel in, but her spirits went down at once from all those students whispering about Harry. Of course the student body would gawk at him, like some perverse form of a celebrity. None of the others looked the least bit happy about this either, but Lily hoped dearly that this wouldn't last long, so she pressed on.

James frowned, feeling his spirits flag a bit as he realized he'd never be able to talk to Harry about the map they'd let Filch 'catch' them with on the last day of term. Harry wouldn't be able to adopt his birth right, and though those hallways wouldn't always remain a mystery to him with familiarity, he wouldn't know them as well as he could.

Sirius and Remus were both thinking the same thing, though Sirius tried to console himself that, with any luck, some other pranksters had worked out how to get a hold of it, and were putting it to use.

"Why do you know how many staircases there are?" Remus laughed. "I've never even sat down and counted them."

"I heard Hermione say that in the common room that morning," Harry told him. "I'm sure she learned about it in that book Hogwarts a History."

"I'll agree with you on that one," Sirius said cheerfully.

"Gotta love a castle with a personality," James said with reminisce, it still felt like only yesterday he and his friends had been roaming those halls, learning every secret they could, having the castle surprise you at every turn.

"Those suits of armor certainly can walk," Remus chuckled, "and they love messing with the students as much as anything else in that castle with a mind."

Harry looked slightly disgruntled at this, but even Lily was smiling and saying, "It's all part of the experience. You need to learn at a young age that magic is complex in all aspects, and nothing is as it seems."

"Way to put a philosophy spin on messing with a kids mind," Sirius laughed.

"Peeves is a lovely chap really," James said through bursts of laughter, not being able to count how many times he'd been pulled over by Peeves in his first year.

"Now Filch is worse," Sirius agreed, "at least Peeves has a sense of humor. That old fart wouldn't know a joke if it bit him in the arse."

"You're just bitter of all the times he caught you," Lily said primly.

"Oh, like you don't hold a grudge for that time in first year when you used the wrong spell and made that bottle of ink explode all over his cat," Remus said slyly.

Lily's face went bright red, and she began stammering a bit, but it was nothing compared to James, who went bug eyed as he spluttered, "you told us you did that!"

"Yes well, I took pity on her when I came across Filch yelling like that, so I told him I did it," Remus told them, still smiling.

Sirius and James looked like they couldn't decide if they were hurt, or pleased at this deception for so long.

"Why didn't you ever tell us?" James demanded.

"Yes, that was the entire reason we invited you out that night," Sirius seconded.

"Couldn't rat out such a pretty girl then," Remus said, smiling indulgently at them all, and still automatically glancing around for his other friend who'd have to comment on that and still frowning just slightly when he wasn't here.

"Oh, but you can now?" Lily demanded, her face completely red from all of this and clearly not noticing his slight distraction.

"Well it's for Harry's benefit after all," he admitted, eyes gleaming as he meet the baby's, now easily right back into this.

Harry was laughing so hard he feared he'd crack a rib soon, while James and Sirius finally decided to cave in and acknowledged that they to, were impressed with this.

Lily was withholding judgement on whether she was going to forgive him, though the chances were high since they were long out of school now and no one could really do anything about it.

"I really do have to wonder why he's even there though," Sirius butted in back on point. "The house elves do a far better job at keeping the castle clean, he only does it when something needs to be taken care of right then in the middle of the day, do we really need someone whose sole purpose is to catch students doing bad things?"

"Considering you lot, and those Weasley twins exist, yes," Lily pointed out.

"So straight out of your mother, and Uncle Remus," James laughed as Harry managed to get on Filch's bad side first morning.

"Yes well, we weren't much better," Sirius argued at once, "since we did wait until our second day to do it on purpose."

"Got to test your boundaries early," James agreed.

Lily winced at the mention of the out of bounds corridor again, while the other three were more privately thinking that if Filch had come across them, it wouldn't have been an accident they were trying to get in.

Lily spoke aloud what they had just been thinking, "yes well, with James as his father, I don't really blame Filch for assuming you were trying to get in on purpose."

"Poor old chap was probably having a flashback," Remus agreed.

"Filch shouldn't base my son off of me," James couldn't help but scold, either Lily or Filch whoever was actually doing it, even while he had a pleased smile for this taking place.

Harry couldn't help a puzzled little frown, like something about Quirrell being near that door should mean something to him...

"I swear that cat is part kneazle," Sirius grumbled when Mrs. Norris was mentioned. "Too damned smart for its own good."

"And you can't blame the students one bit for wanting to kick that cat," James said with chipper.

"But the challenge of doing more than saying funny words to create magic makes it all the more fun," Lily said with pleasure.

"Never saw the point in Astronomy class," Sirius huffed, "I think it should be optional to third years, and that's it."

"Oh no," Lily said at once, "It's very important that you get a rounded education, and learning how-"

"Lily," James said again, "we discussed this, pertinent information."

Lily narrowed her eyes at him and said, "you just wait, I'm going to remind you of that later."

"Herbology class hated me," Sirius said at once.

"No Sirius," James said slowly, as if talking to an idiotic child, "you hated that class. Don't blame the plants."

"The plants sure hated me," Sirius grumbled, bouncing the baby around a bit to make himself feel better. When he began letting out high pitched giggling, it worked at once.

Lily sighed, "I have to agree with you on that one," she said sadly, "I've read the text for History of Magic of course, and I think it's fascinating, but Binns has to be the worst teacher there is."

"I'll give you that," Remus agreed, feeling bored at the mere mention of that class. He would be the first to admit he had used that class as an extra nap period. "Give that class a better teacher, and it could be one of the best."

"How do you fire a ghost though?" Sirius asked.

"Pretty sure no one can answer that, which is why no one's done anything about it," James laughed.

All four adults huffed at that, wishing that at least the teachers would show a little decorum, they would have thought better of Flitwick than squealing over Harry no matter how much of the fun teacher he was usually considered to be.

"Why wouldn't McGonagall be different than the other teachers?" Sirius laughed. "Did you expect all your teachers to be exactly the same?"

Harry quickly explained, "well, in primary school, we had one teacher that taught us everything. I wasn't used to having different teachers at the same time."

"Fascinating," Remus said, "but that must have been hard on them. My dad didn't send me to primary school, for ah, obvious reasons," he explained sheepishly.

"No," Harry said frowning. "What are the obvious reasons?"

Lily clasped Harry's hand tightly and said, "it's a bit hard to explain dear, but for now all you need to know is that Remus' dad tried to keep him away from other people."

"But why though?" Harry said, getting more confused by the minute.

"Prejudice against something they didn't understand," James answered when it seemed Remus didn't want to, "they thought werewolves were a danger to them all the time."

"But they're not," Harry said in a 'duh' like tone, this was obvious to him after all, why would other people not see it.

"Let's, carry on shall we," Remus said, getting more uncomfortable by the minute, "leave this one for later."

Harry still looked confused, but let the matter slide for now.

The others, especially Remus, felt both happy that Harry was still innocent enough to not understand prejudices, and equally unwilling to introduce them to him themselves.

"Show off," Remus chuckled a bit forcefully, trying to brighten the mood back to what it was, and McGonagall's trick of transforming the furniture into farm animals was a good one considering Harry's immediately impressed look. For now, he'd count his blessings his attention was clearly as distractible as an eleven year olds.

"Really, are we sure this Hermione wasn't in Ravenclaw?" Sirius demanded, quite impressed she'd managed such advanced transfiguration like he had.

"I don't think Harry's that senile, or that she's that lost," James said, honestly just as impressed.

"I feared as much about Quirrell," Remus said with a wince.

"A real pity he's no use, since it's one of your most important classes for learning offensive spells," James agreed.

Lily couldn't argue that logic, though she didn't approve what this lot had done with those offensive spells recreationally.

"Okay, that one's fair enough," Remus chuckled for real this time if that's really what the garlic was for.

"I can see why they're a bit skeptical of his tale of the turban then," James laughed. "Can't even lie properly, or spin a good tale," Sirius said sadly.

"I wouldn't put it past him to carry garlic with him everywhere inside that turban," Remus said.

Harry couldn't help frowning, his automatic reaction to be to correct Remus and say something else was going on there, but he knew he'd pay for it and held his tongue.

"We tried to tell you you wouldn't be behind," Lily said.

"Oh I know now," Harry said quickly, still frowning a bit and knowing he was missing something to do with Quirrell and that turbine, but happy to change the subject and take his mind off of it.

"It took you five days to find the Great Hall without getting lost?" James said with honest disappointment. "Sirius and I managed that by the first morning."

"Yes well, we kind of snuck out that very night and made sure we could do as much," Sirius said fairly.

All four felt a spike in their emotions as the mention of Potions came up.

"Well he shouldn't favor his own house," Lily said at once, looking scandalized at the thought Sev would do that.

"Wouldn't surprise me if he did," James muttered to himself.

"Wish McGonagall favored us," Sirius said sadly, having been told off by her, probably more than any other teacher, then Sirius blinked for a moment before bursting into laughter that Harry had said the same as him in this book.

"Being the head of house will never stop her assigning homework," Remus said brightly.

"I swear sometimes you enjoyed your homework," James groaned.

"Owls are a much better wake up call then being yelled at," Harry said, smiling to himself, "if a bit more alarming."

The four adults wondered if the aching feeling of loss would ever go away at this constant reminder that none of them had been able to write to him, to demand all sorts of details on how his week had gone. Who would Harry turn to for help if any problems arose at school? His friend was the same year as him, so he wasn't going to be able to help with everything? So they all perked up instantly at that arrival of Hedwig with a note.

"Oh Hagrid," Lily said, almost tearing up with joy, "I'll never be able to thank that man enough." The others couldn't help but agree with her, thinking that if they couldn't be there for Harry, at least someone still was for the little things like this.

"Why did Hagrid send him that in a note though?" James asked, "Surely he might have bumped into Hagrid on the grounds?"

Lily shook her head a bit before saying, "James, has it even mentioned that Harry's been traveling the grounds yet? I'm sure he's been staying inside and studying. It's his first week after all, it's still all new."

Harry verbally agreed with his mother, while privately thinking to himself that Hagrid may have just known. Harry had been watching students all around him get mail for a week now, maybe his first friend would have seen Harry every morning and realized he'd want the same. He didn't choose to put this aloud though, wondering if it would sound too hokey to the men.

"I knew it," Sirius snarled the second reference was made to his Potions class being the worst thing all week, looking like he wanted to get to his feet all over again and go curse that little slime ball.

Lily looked crushed, still not really wanting to believe her old school friend would turn on a child, so she said nothing until she read what actually happened. James was beginning to feel the first visages of guilt at all of his actions he'd done to Snape, now knowing how Lily had felt when she said she felt guilty for the way Petunia treated her son.

Whether intentionally or not, they both felt responsible for the way these people, secondary in their own life, figured directly into their son's life.

"Oh," Lily said, brightening up for a moment, perhaps it was a student that had made this Potion class so bad, considering Harry's at first misunderstood comment about Snape's apparent thoughts on him, but then without even looking at the boys, she kept reading, and her feelings sunk far lower than before. Almost as much as when she'd found out her son had been sleeping in a cupboard.

Pursing her lips, and fighting back tears, she had to wonder did everyone she used to love as a child hate her son now?

Harry looked very upset as well, more so that his mother looked so close to bursting into tears, but Lily gave none of those boys a chance to say anything, as she quickly read on.

James gritted his teeth, and both Sirius and Remus felt themselves go a bit flushed with anger at the way this was starting already. Snape mocking Harry's celebrity status when the man knew full what it had cost Harry his mother for one thing was of the lowest blows for this man in particular to be making.

"Spot on comparison, comparing his void like eyes to dark tunnels," Sirius hissed. Lily ignored him.

"I'm surprised really, that he has a gift for anything, let alone keeping attention." James grumbled under his breath. "Since everyone had a natural talent for ignoring him during classes."

"He sure thinks highly of his job," Sirius snapped.

Lily snapped as well, having quite enough. "Alright you two, you hate him. I know that. But I am not going to sit here and listen to you complain about every little thing he says."

Both boys went a bit wide eyed at the veracity, not knowing that she was channeling her own anger outwards. When her eyes swiveled onto Remus, possibly expecting him to join his friends, or maybe hoping for an ally against them, Remus simply threw his hands up in surrender and said, "I've several issues with Severus, but I'm not going to sit around and berate him."

"No, but you'll sit by and watch your friends do it," she practically hissed, all those old feelings coming back up to the surface again.

"Hey!" All three began at once, but Harry had finally had enough. "Stop it!"

They did indeed all freeze and turn to him. Harry had shouted so loudly though that baby Harry began crying in shock and fear. Sirius calmed him down quickly enough, and then Harry went on in more mellow tones, "Stop it, please. I can't stand watching you all fight like this."

Lily and James in particular looked remorseful, but Sirius still looked ready for a fight, and said, "Yes well, I guess there are some things we all still need to get off of our chests."

"Why are you even fighting though?" Harry demanded. "What on earth am I missing?"

All four fidgeted slightly, suddenly realizing they hadn't really mentioned there old school rival/friend.

Finally, it was Lily that sighed and said, "How about we explain after this chapter dear? It is a bit involved."

Harry still looked annoyed, but agreed anyways. His parents had kept their word about these things so far.

Remus couldn't help the snort that escaped him, in the worst way. Oh that was a lovely teaching method, insult your students.

"The Drought of Living Death," Lily said at once to Snape's first question directed at Harry, her eyes narrowing with distaste, that was a sixth year potion after all. "Why on earth would any of them know that?"

"I don't believe it," James gaped, "there's no way Hermione actually knew the answer to that!"

"Perhaps she was going to cite something from One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi," Sirius offered, not believing that even this bright little first year could know that.

"He did not, just imply-" James began to snarl in outrage Snape's crack about Harry's fame implying knoweldge, wanting to reach out and take the book to confirm that this bully was really picking on a child now, for something as awful as his parents death!

"Why that-" both Remus and Sirius began at once, but Lily quickly looked round at them, her face flushed with anger herself, but saying, "I meant it you three. I will not sit here and listen to you go badgering on about him every time he says something. Yes-" she quickly added on when James looked ready to fight back, "-he shouldn't have said that, it was wrong. Yet I won't hear it."

All three slumped back in real agitation now, really not wanting to see how far Snivellus was going to push little Harry's buttons.

"In the stomach of a goat," Lily said to herself when she'd continued onto his ridiculous interrogation of his Potion knowledge. What was he hoping to accomplish with this? If Harry had shown mastery like Lily once had, would he still be at this? That at least had been a first year question, though why he was still picking on her boy, made her furious.

"And Harry's still being polite and everything to that miserable excuse of a-," Sirius grumbled to himself, not even being able to refer to Snape as a teacher right now.

"Really now," Remus snarled, "accusing him of not opening a book, that's just being childish," though he said it quietly enough he didn't think Lily heard him.

"They're the same plant! Really now Severus, if he doesn't know by now move on!" Lily said in outrage, yes having heard all of the boys previous mutters, but finally losing her own patience.

"Lily, are you going to answer all of these questions?" James asked.

"It distracts me," she snapped.

"Alright then, you do that," he said at once, tossing his hands up in surrender.

Remus wanted to laugh at this, Hermione clearly wanted to prove herself still trying to answer all of these questions, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it, still to angered at Snape's actions.

"Thank you Harry, for finally telling him to shove off." James said, releasing a breath, "I was starting to get worried you'd let him do that to you all class."

Harry shook his head, having had more than enough bullying from the family he lived with to last a lifetime, he really wasn't going to let a teacher start on him now.

Lily's hands tensed over the book so hard she feared she might rip it. Still, that didn't lessen her anger any. Really, now who was acting like a child? Taking an old grudge out on her baby.

James groaned and planted his face in his hands, knowing full well that taking away a house point was just the beginning in a long line of times he was going to hate his eleven year old self. Sirius just was just surprised it was only one!

"Malfoy's dad and he Snape are old Death Eater buddies I'm sure," Sirius whispered into baby Harry's ear, making very sure Lily didn't hear the reason he was sure Snape favored Malfoy.

"Now that's a real accomplishment," Remus honestly chuckled at Neville's accident, "I didn't manage to melt a cauldron until my second potions lesson."

"And you then melted one every other class after that," Sirius laughed.

"Don't exaggerate Sirius," James said, a teasing smile curling his lips, "it was only once a month I'm sure."

"Oh haha, very funny," he grumbled, his friends would never let him live that down.

"The poor thing," Lily crooned at all the boils on the first year in his first class.

"That arse!" She screamed at once at Snape's response to this.

All four boys jumped, looking as startled as the baby. Lily quickly set the book aside, then went over and scooped the baby away from Sirius, more to calm her own nerves down then anything. Only after her son was properly happy again did she give him back and march back over and pick up the book, intending to pick up where she left off, but James bravely said, "Ah, Lily flower, would you like to vent a bit?"

"No," she said through gritted teeth, then read in the same way.

"A genuine mistake," Remus muttered, rubbing a spot on his arm in pained remembrance of what could happen if you didn't take the potion off the fire before adding further ingredients.

"Why should Harry have stopped Neville?" James cut in his, his eyes burning. "It's not his job to watch, it's the teachers."

Lily sucked in a deep breath, but finally started to read again in an almost normal tone, only for her words to spike in anger as she kept going.

"Oh bloody hell," she and Sirius cried at the same time at the injustice Snape used to take further points away.

"This is, I really can't believe," Lily stuttered, to angry for words any more. Sirius sure wasn't, as he continued to verbally abuse Snape, calling him several things he'd never even thought to do back in school.

Even James and Remus looked like they were going to explode at any given moment, each only being able to hold themselves back at a bit of personal guilt, but it was quickly waning.

Harry just looked around at all of them, hurt and confused as to what had his family so upset. When he gently touched his mum on the shoulders, she came out of her rage a bit, enough to go on anyways.

"Probably for the best Ron kicked you," Remus sighed, "don't give him a real excuse to go after you."

"He obviously doesn't need one," James growled.

"Thank you," Lily breathed, knowing full well she couldn't have handled another paragraph of that and quite glad it had finally skipped ahead.

All three boys then snorted, genuinely amused the points from his house was what had Harry's spirits down.

"Please," James sighed, "I lost ten in my first ever class by asking Slughorn if his mustache was hiding tusks."

Harry blinked, very confused by this, but it made Lily laugh again and say, "Oh yes, I remember that. Slughorn always did like cheek, but never, it seemed, from you."

"It might have had something to do with the fact that James resented his little Slug Club initiation," Sirius said wisely, "as James really didn't want to be invited to another, he made a bit of an arse of himself."

"And it just got worse as time went on," Remus laughed.

"Snape hating you is my fault, I'm afraid," James said with a grimace.

"Our fault," Sirius butted in at once, "you were hardly ever alone after all."

"We couldn't very well let you after a point," Remus agreed, "or you likely would have been ambushed."

"I can't decide if that was really sweet, or just sad at how many enemies you lot made," Lily said, frowning at them.

"Go with sweet," Sirius said in what he clearly thought was a charming tone of voice, "it makes us look better."

Harry felt like he was finally understanding the underlying problem here, but still wanted to hear this story first hand. Ignoring that awful feeling that, yet again, he should know the answer anyways.

"Oh, did Hagrid get a new dog?" Sirius asked brightly when Fang was mentioned.

"I guess, time wise, poor Claw would have died," James said sadly.

"I'm sure this one is just as vicious," Remus said, chuckling.

Lily was pursing her lips, knowing full well the boys were joking about the 'vicious' thing, but still feeling rather worried that Hagrid had to hold the dog back.

Now they were all laughing at how Fang greeted the boys, Lily relaxing at once as she realized Fang was just a little puppy at heart.

"Better than Claw then," Sirius laughed, "he just loved sticking his nose up our-"

"Okay Sirius," James said quickly, "we know, I promise, we remember."

"Rock cakes?" Lily asked in confusion.

The others shrugged. Sure they knew Hagrid in passing and liked him well enough, they traveled the grounds so much that they had struck up a few conversations and gotten to know his previous dog, but never well enough to be invited over.

"Oh I see," Lily said, unable to help laughing a bit with further details, "Hagrid must not be a very good cook."

"Now I wonder where he could have heard Filch being galled an old git," James said with high exaggeration as he eyed Sirius, who smiled unabashedly.

"Now that's just rude, keeping Mrs. Norris on Hagrid like that" Lily said, frowning.

"Hagrid clearly doesn't know that a good way to get a cat to stop following you is to bark at it a few times," Sirius said wisely.

"I highly doubt anybody but you four would know that," Lily said right back.

"Oh, Hagrid knows exactly why Snape hates you," Remus said, frowning a bit at such an evasive answer.

"Though I can't blame him for not telling," James said sadly, "I guess Hagrid doesn't want you to start out hating one of your teachers."

"But you are still going to tell me yourselves right?" Harry persisted.

Still not looking happy about it, James promised he would try.

"And as subtle as ever," Sirius chuckled at Hagrid's poor attempts to chatting about Charlie.

"Cotton on to Hagrid changing the subject have you?" James said weakly.

"Really?" They all said at once when a date for that bank break in was given, taking note now that this had happened on Harry's birthday, the day he was at Gringotts. All four frowned, very glad Hagrid had been with him. If it really had been Dark wizards, then they would have liked nothing more than to get their hands on Harry.

Still, they managed to comfort themselves by thinking this must have happened much later, after Harry had long since left Diagon Alley, so none of them said anything more of it.

"Oh please don't say it was going on while you were there," Lily said looking almost faint at the idea. It didn't matter it had already happened, the idea was going to linger in her head now anyways and she didn't need details.

"So Hagrid knows what was stolen?" James yelped in shock.

"It was the package he took out?" Sirius said, looking wide eyed.

"What on earth did Dumbledore have him pick up?" Remus demanded.

Lily bit her lip hard to stop herself from blurting out the next question, 'why was it suddenly that a door was being bared off that same year?' No, it couldn't be possible Dumbledore would hide something that Dark wizards wanted in a school full of children. That was dangerous beyond anything else there.

Instead, she pressed on quickly, hoping Hagrid would once again make a stab at changing the subject.

Harry on the other hand looked like he was going to be sick, the constant feeling of pain building up in his head getting worse with all these questions he should have been able to answer, and quickly zoned in on the sound of his mother's voice as a distraction.

"It stands to reason this package was picked up just in time, or just a really, really big fat coincidence," Remus muttered, mostly to himself.

"I have a bad feeling I know the answer to where that thing is now, and yes, Hagrid does know more about Snape than he's sharing." Lily said wisely.

"What did you do with the rock cakes?" James asked loudly, really not wanting to think of Dark wizards bursting through the Hogwarts gates in search of this artifact that all this implied was now hanging around his son's school.

Harry gave himself a firm shake and said, "err, Ron and I left them by the fireplace, let them melt a bit and get all gooey again. Then we really did eat them, and they weren't bad then."


	10. THE MIDNIGHT DUEL

Harry really wanted to butt in and remind them that they'd promised him a response to Snape's attitude towards him, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He still felt to shy, the ingrained nature of never being allowed to ask questions still winning out. Clearly it was a sore subject to all, so he decided to keep his mouth shut and just hope they would really tell him eventually.

"My turn," James said eagerly, hoping a Quidditch match would come up soon, he doubted this book would take them through a week by week of the castle after all.

"I don't know," Sirius said to Harry's deceleration of not hating anyone as bad as Malfoy, "I find it hard to believe that Malfoy will do anything that will make me hate him more than that spoiled brat of a Muggle."

Harry was frowning, knowing full well he had a reason to be feeling like this, and yet not knowing why at the same time. He had no argument for Sirius then, so he let his dad keep going.

"Why do they do force the Gryffindors and Slytherins to learn together?" Remus groaned in disgust.

James on the other hand was delighted, his son had natural flying abilities, and he couldn't wait to read about it, no matter who would be watching.

"What I don't understand is why they have those lessons first year," Lily said "after all, you can't even join until second year. What's the point in one lesson practically a year before?"

"It's to gauge potential," Sirius said wisely.

"Nonsense," Sirius said, siding with James the moment Harry's fear of looking like a fool on a broom was spoken, "Harry's a natural, I'll bet you anything he picks up on it first try."

Harry looked far from reassured, and Lily shot the two very disgruntled looks and said, "and if he doesn't? What, are you going to laugh along with that Malfoy?"

Both boys looked shocked and hurt that Lily could ever think such a thing, and James was quick to say, "of course not, how could you think that? We're just confident in his abilities."

Lily ground her teeth in frustration, she was sure they hadn't gotten her point that they were setting Harry up for feeling bad about himself if they turned out to be wrong, but hoping she was wrong she decided to let James keep going.

James and Sirius exchanged uneasy looks, not having thought of the fact that Malfoy had grown up with the sport and likely wasn't just exaggerating his Quidditch boasts. Malfoy most likely did have his own broom at home, and had been able to fly for ages.

When they had spoken with such confidence, they had been speaking as if Harry had grown up as he should have, getting his own broom for his first birthday like Sirius fully intended, playing with a Quaffle in the yard like James had always planned. For that one brief moment, they had forgotten what was going to happen, and just went with what should have been.

James shook himself hard, forcing that empty feeling creeping up again to go away so he could read about his son.

Sirius grimaced in disgust of even unintentionally mimicking this Malfoy kid, helicopters included.

Lily was just impressed he knew what a helicopter was, and quickly whispered to James she'd explain it later.

"See," James said loudly, more than happy to change the subject to Ron's confusion on such a seemingly boring sport as Deans, "I'm not the only one who thinks that!"

"I don't force you to follow it," Lily said patiently.

Remus laughed to himself, remembering both James and Sirius prodding many of his photos no matter how many times he explained they weren't going to move.

"Poor dear," Lily said sadly, she couldn't blame the girl one bit, she had never been one for flying either and would have loved some advice from Hermione at that time as well even from a book.

"Oh, come on now Harry, Quidditch Through the Ages is like the one book in that library that's useful," Sirius sighed.

"By that point I was just bored by whatever she said," Harry said, frowning to himself. The feelings he had now were of annoyance at such a know it all girl, but Harry had been so sure of his feeling earlier. Had his gut feeling been wrong, and he wasn't friends with her?

"Show off," James said in disgust. Yes his parents had sent him homemade packages from home as well, but he'd never gloated over the fact, but instead tossed whatever he could to his friends unlike this Malfoy kid.

"Oh Remembralls are so useless," Remus said, shaking his head.

"Why's that?" Harry asked.

"The smoke inside it turns red when you've forgotten something, so it's constantly red, because you always forget something," Sirius said.

Harry still looked confused, so Remus explained properly, "Whether it's something like forgetting your homework, or simply forgetting what you had for dinner last night, it doesn't tell you what you've forgotten. So essentially the smoke will always be red."

"Oh," Harry said, then he frowned and began rubbing his temple again. There was something he should remember about Neville's Remembrall, but what? Sighing in frustration he simply thanked them and then asked his father to go on.

"Why?" All four adults said in shock as Malfoy took Neville's new item right from his hand.

"Those tables are at opposite ends of the hall," Remus said.

"Looking for a fight I'm sure," James muttered.

"Really now," Lily said, "did Malfoy think he could get away with that? In the Great Hall? Where all of the teachers in the castle are?"

"Intelligence never ran in the Malfoy line," Sirius said in what he clearly thought was an intelligent tone of voice.

Lily didn't even begrudge her son and his friend trying to start a fight otherwise though, it was after all Malfoy who had picked that fight.

The other three boys had no problems with this whatsoever.

Now they all snorted in disbelief, as if any teacher would believe Malfoy was just looking at a moment like the one he'd caused.

"Those old school brooms that fly askew are the nice ones," Sirius said in disgust, "I got one that tried rolling constantly."

"Yes!" James and Sirius shouted with glee, they just knew Harry would be a natural, how could he not? The fact that his broom had instantly flown into his hand was only proof of what they already knew. James read on quickly now, wanting to hear first-hand how much his son loved flying.

"That's a fascinating insight, the brooms responding to voice as if sentient," Lily said, puzzling over this. "Since all magical objects do at least form some mind of their own after a time, but I don't think anyone's ever conducted a study."

"More projects for you then dear," James said, grinning over at his wife.

Sirius and James couldn't help but give vindictive grins at Madam Hooch correcting Malfoy's grip, that boy was clearly going to be trouble for Harry, so any victory now would be savored.

"How can you grip a broom wrong though?" Harry asked, trying to picture it in his head. "Don't you just sort of, hold on? How would she even know he'd been doing it wrong for years?"

Sirius was more than eager to explain, "there's different ways to grip a broom just as there are different ways to kick or throw a ball to get a certain spin on it. Just for the hovering you were doing, you'd only need a fairly loose grip, and for Malfoy to be holding however wrong he was, she would have known that was the grip he used for everything, meaning he must have been doing it wrong for some time."

Harry's eyes sparked with interest, he dearly wanted to sit around and discuss this type of thing for ages, but relented that they could wait for a better time.

"Oh my gosh," Lily said in shock the second Neville had gone from simply having the mishap of a misbehaving broom to slamming back into the ground. She pressed her hand to her mouth and had to fight back the urge to run to someones side who wasn't in here.

James gave a wince of remembered pain, he had his fair share of injuries at school, falling off of brooms were always the worst.

"Why didn't Madam Hooch try to at least slow his fall?" Remus demanded.

Harry merely shrugged, he hadn't been watching her, so he had no idea.

"Good riddance I say," Sirius grumbled to the broom still carelessly floating away.

They all released a breath of relief at Madam Hooch's deduction of the injury, Madam Pomfrey could fix that up in seconds, and it really could have been worse. All four adults were pursing their lips the moment the kids were left alone while Neville was attended to though, knowing full well that something was likely to happen with this group being left unattended.

"How is that funny?" Lily snapped in disgust.

James was frowning severely as well, there really was no way that could have been funny to anyone.

"Sweet kid," Remus said smiling for this Parvati. They didn't even know if her and Neville were friends, but it was like Gryffindor's in general to stand up for each other.

"You don't have to have a crush on a boy to defend them," Lily growled at such a stupid comeback she'd had to hear far to frequently in her youth.

"That little prat," Lily snapped in disgust. First Malfoy insulted the boy, who had done nothing to him as far as she knew, now he took something that didn't even belong to him. And for what? Just to rub it in that he had.

"I'm going to have to agree with you on that one," Sirius grumbled.

James, while as angry as the others, wasn't all that concerned. He was confident his son would stand up for his dorm mate.

"Atta boy Harry," all three boys said with glee.

Harry smiled round at them all.

All four looked rather concerned for their own boy the moment Malfoy took to the air though. Harry had one of two options now, to back down and look foolish, or attempt to get the Remembrall back on a broom he had no idea how to use.

It was a no win situation either way for him, and they only hoped a teacher would come along soon.

"No," Lily shouted loudly the moment Harry did the stupidest available option. "Harry, you could fall off and break much more than your wrist!"

Harry gave her a caring smile, still not quite used to the fact that anybody cared if he was injured at all, but then gently reminded her that this had already happened, and he was sitting here fine now.

The other boys still looked just as concerned, and rather annoyed that something as important as Harry's first flying lesson had been ruined like this, and James quickly read on.

"Oh, I doubt she'd punish everyone out there. Just the two on the brooms," Remus said fairly to Hermione's worry.

"Amazing," James and Sirius said with high pride, genuine surprise this time at how easily Harry took to instincts on a broom. Despite the situation he'd had to learn it in, they couldn't think of many more things that would please them more than hearing Harry was a natural on a broom. Both boys looked like they wanted to do more than whoop with joy as Harry called out Malfoy on his lack of backup, but James was too eager to read then to act on it.

While Lily and Remus felt a high sense of pride at Harry's actions, still some residual fear that Harry could get in trouble lingered more than anything.

Harry himself just felt euphoric at the memories of his first flying lesson, though he couldn't help but think there was going to be more to this story.

"Malfoy would be sulking," Sirius said with glee, "thought you was a muggle who had no idea what he was doing. Proved him wrong though!"

Lily was worrying her lip to blood, oh she really hoped Harry wouldn't be too badly injured when he slammed face first into the ground trying to catch that thing. A broken nose was the worst she could deal with right now.

The other three were simply curious how close Harry would get to catching it, having faith that any of the teachers there could deal with minor injuries, which was all Harry should get from this.

"He caught it," they all yelped in shock, turning wide eyed to Harry.

Harry was just grinning to himself, but Lily was still worried sick, so he'd caught it a foot from the ground, that meant he still had to pull up in time to avoid injuries, and it would be remarkable for him to have those kinds of reflexes without any practice.

"Yes!" The shout rang out from all of them when Harry pulled off the near impossible.

"Oh you'll be a shoe in next year for Quidditch!" All three boys added.

"That's what you're concerned with," Lily said, still a little bug eyed, "I'm just happy he wasn't hurt."

"Oh, he would never had been hurt too bad from that stunt," Remus brushed off, "I was a bit concerned he might get in trouble, but I guess-"

"Not so fast Remus," James said frowning down at the book before reading aloud.

"Aw," all three groaned, Harry was sure to get a detention for this now McGonagall had arrived.

Lily felt like it was justly deserved, hopefully now in the future he might listen to the rules, even if Harry's actions now were well intended.

Harry was now rubbing his temple in frustration again, there was something important about Professor McGonagall showing up. He didn't really think it was detention either, but what? So he asked his father to go on.

"Really now," Sirius snickered, "what Harry did is the worst she's seen in Hogwarts, has she really forgotten us so easily?"

Remus had his lips pursed, trying not to burst out laughing at the genuinely offended look on his friends face. Harry couldn't muster up much of a reaction as he was just left wondering why Sirius had gotten the wrong impression from that statement.

"Broken neck or worse, exactly what I was thinking," Lily muttered furiously.

All four of them frowned at Parvati and Ron being cut off like that, it wasn't like McGonagall to not hear all sides of the story. Perhaps she was taking Harry to her office to get the full story without an audience, that wasn't out of the norm.

The three boys cracked up laughing at Harry's first idea of punishment being expulsions, even Lily giggled a bit. At Harry's confused look she managed to explain, "Harry dear, if these four never got expelled for everything they were caught doing, let alone the things that couldn't be proven that they did, a little thing like this is not going to get you expelled."

Harry was looking around at the others smiling and said, "I'd really like to hear all of your years at Hogwarts. You seemed to have gotten up to a lot."

"You've no idea," Remus said wisely.

"We've only scratched the surface," Sirius agreed.

The humor was dried up and replaced with disgust at the notion of going back to the Dursleys, more than thankful this wouldn't be an issue, hopefully ever again.

"Definitely not a big enough offense to be sent to Dumbledore's office." James said knowledgeably.

"Yeah, it took us blowing up a school corridor for that to happen to us," Sirius agreed.

Harry blinked spastically for a moment, but James was already moving on.

"While I wouldn't blame you for wanting that job of being Hagrid's gamekeeper assistant," Remus agreed, "I doubt that's going to be necessary."

"Bit melodramatic much," Lily said in amusement, Harry's offense wasn't nearly as bad as all of his imagination was playing out. It broke James heart that he'd rather be Hagrid's assistant then live at home, but kept going.

"What?" They all asked in confusion, none with a clue why McGonagall would go to Flitwick at a time like this, let alone ask for wood.

"I have no idea what that's about," Remus said, when the two boys looked at him like he had an answer.

Harry was rubbing his temple in agitation again, Wood. Was that a name? He felt like that was a name, but who? Or perhaps a cane, as some form of punishment, that seemed more like what his background had taught him.

All four adults turned sharply to Harry at the mention of caning, but he threw his hands up and said quickly this time, "The school used it as punishment once or twice, it's legal so long as they have parent consent. Which they did."

They were all still frowning but since it was a teacher that had delivered the punishment, which they still disapproved of, at least it wasn't as bad. The teacher would at least be expected to do it with restraint. James dearly wanted to ask what he had been caned for, but he decided if Harry didn't offer the information, it would just make him angrier when he found out.

"Oh," they all said, even more confused than before when it turned out to be a fellow student, but it was better than caning.

"Wow, she didn't even take you to her own office," James said in surprise at the comment of stepping into the nearest classroom.

"Should I be worried you know that right off the bat?" Lily asked.

"No," all three said at the same time. "Besides," Remus continued, "if there's one place in the castle Peeves has never entered, it's the Professor's office. He does have some boundaries."

"See," Sirius seconded his friend, "maybe not much, but he does show a glimmer of respect to the teachers."

"If cursing is 'a glimmer of respect' to you, I'd hate to see you on a bad day," Lily grumbled.

"What!" All five of them said, James and Sirius looked like they were going to faint at the news McGonagall delivered.

Lily reached over and snatched the book away from him to read that one for herself. No way would McGonagall reward a student for breaking the rules, especially in this manner!

Harry and Remus both sat there, looking like stunned fish.

"A Seeker!" Sirius said, coming out of his shock first, "they let a first year join the team, as a Seeker!"

"Well he's got the right build," James agreed, giving himself a small shake and eyeing his son, he was even slighter than himself honestly.

"Really?" Lily demanded, "That's your response."

"What would you have them do?" Remus asked her, "be upset? No, I think this is their proudest moment yet."

Lily looked round at all three boys, then turned on Harry and said, "please tell me this isn't for real."

Harry had gotten over his stunned feeling and was now grinning as widely as the others, and responded, "oh this is real Mum. I'm positive of that."

Grunting and shoving the book away from her as if suddenly deceased, James took it back all too eagerly and read on, happier than he'd been since they started this book.

"Don't," Remus snapped at his friend the moment the word serious was used in the book, "I want to hear this." Sirius, amazingly, shut his mouth and nodded eagerly.

"This is the opposite of being expelled," Remus laughed in delight at Harry's confusion of the situation.

"I'm guessing they didn't have a Seeker for the team then," James said, going bug eyed at this realization of Wood's immediate agreement to this.

"No, Wood told me later that night that their previous Seeker, Charlie Weasley in fact, had graduated and they'd have to hold trials that weekend. Apparently looking for a new position is awful though."

"I hear that," Sirius agreed, he hated the trails.

"We gathered the part that he's Quidditch Captain all on our own," Lily muttered snidely, still not happy about this.

"Yes," James and Sirius cheered at further good news. Well of course Harry would have to use something other than those school brooms, which meant that Harry got to bend yet another rule around.

"This is completely ridiculous," Lily seethed, "I swear if Harry's head swells to your size James-"

"Really now Lily, he's sitting right there," Sirius cut in.

Her eyes swiveled to her son, who was looking rather anxious that his mum was so upset, so she sucked in a deep breath and said, "I'm sorry Harry. I've just lived seven years of my life watching this lot get away with breaking school rules, and I don't want you to think that it's okay."

Harry pursed his lips and said slowly, "well since I can't exactly say whether or not I have, can you just trust me when I say it didn't go to my head if I did?" Of this he was positive, since even now he cringed at the idea of any more attention than he was getting even now.

Lily nodded and told him that yes, she would believe him with that. Crisis averted, James still eagerly read on.

All four Quidditch boys winced at the idea of being flattened so thoroughly by another team like McGonagall was describing.

Lily still couldn't help but gnash her teeth as she pointed out, "no one even asked you if you wanted the position! She just said you've got the gig, then says she's going to punish you if you aren't training!"

"Lily," Remus sighed at her. "I am positive if Harry had declined wanting to join the team, she still may have let the whole thing go she was so impressed."

Lily muttered something else under her breath that James chose to ignore.

"I know you used to be a Quidditch player now," Harry said, beaming at his dad, "but it was quite a shock to hear then. What position did you play anyways?"

"Chaser," he said with pride.

"Did you play Remus?" Harry asked him. He seemed interested in the game, but he didn't seem as obsessed as his two friends. He didn't need to ask his Mum, she had made her opinions clear.

"No," he admitted, "but I did start commentating the games starting my fifth year. So I will admit I got quite into it."

"He's being modest," Sirius chuckled, "Remus got quite the vocabulary during the games."

"Just keep reading," he said, blushing slightly.

"No McGonagall wasn't joking!" James said, frowning at the text, "I was Captain for two years! That's no joke."

"I'm sure he doesn't mean you," Lily said, "just keep going."

"See," Lily said patiently when it was explained that was Ron's exclamation.

"Oh yeah," Remus nodded to the crazy idea of a first year making the team, the youngest in a century. "I remember reading that somewhere. Another first year made it onto the team, he was a Hufflepuff I think, and he did something on his school broom..." he trailed off from there, still puzzling out the details.

James said with real curiosity, "I'm sure you read it somewhere, so let us know when you remember."

Now all four adults cracked up at the idea of Harry's Seeker status being anything remotely hidden from the school. Keep a secret? At Hogwarts? The only secret that they knew for a fact had been kept was Remus', and even then rumors abound had floated around him.

"Sweet," Sirius grinned at the idea of the red headed twins also being Beaters, "these two just get better and better!"

Lily kept it to herself that she had been thinking about bringing Harry around to the Weasley's soon, she didn't want James or Sirius coming and encouraging what was obviously mischievous behavior.

"I thought Charlie only left the year before?" Remus asked. "Why would they phrase it as if they hadn't won the cup multiple years in a row with him gone?"

"He did," Harry explained, "I asked about that later, they didn't win the last year Charlie was there, but his sixth year. That's what they meant."

"Oh," the three boys said indulgently, they sincerely doubted this new secret passage they'd supposedly discovered was new to them. The moment they explained they'd in fact found the secret passage behind Gregory the Smarmy in their first week had all three chuckling, oh these twins were perfect substitutes for the Marauders.

"Come to gloat over a failed victory," James grumbled to himself the second that pompous little Malfoy showed up again with those other two idiots.

"That's right pup," Sirius cheered, "don't you take his crap."

Lily was pursing her lips with distaste, while the other three were just curious at Harry's response to a wizards duel.

"Ron," Lily balked in annoyance, "what if Harry had wanted to say no?"

"Oh I didn't," Harry said, "I was actually very pleased he'd stepped in." Then he hesitated and asked, "What's a second?"

All three boys looked like they were going to crack up laughing at any moment, but Remus said, "It's your backup person in case one of you die."

At Harry's bug eyed look, Sirius really did lose it and started rolling around laughing, causing the baby in his arms to giggle up a storm as well.

James was quick to say at Harry's startled look, "oh don't worry, you lot probably don't even know any defensive spells at this point. It's more a matter of honor that you show up and, honestly, you'll probably just start punching each other."

"You approve of this?" Lily snapped at him.

"Sure," he said with a shrug, "if Harry had said no, he'd look weak. At least this way, Harry will be able to build a bit of character."

"Character my arse," Lily snarled, "he just got away with breaking one rule, now he's going to sneak around the castle at night. He probably thinks he can get away with that as well."

"Mum," Harry said in exasperation, "I promise, I'm not going to go around and start breaking every rule there." He was too afraid of being expelled and sent back to the Dursleys honestly. "Dad's right. Malfoy had it coming to him, and this was a way for me to show him up." By the end of this he was frowning and rubbing his temple again. There was something important about this night. Something about a dog? But what? Fang perhaps? Lily still didn't look particularly pleased, but Harry just sighed and asked his father to go on.

"True that," Sirius agreed, a little reluctantly, that Malfoy was right about the Trophy Room being a good meet up place.

"Liking your friend more and more," Sirius chuckled, having given James advice on more than one occasion similar to just punching someone in the face rather than spell work when the mood struck.

Remus was chuckling a bit at Ron's exclamation about eating in peace, he did have a point. Who got interrupted three times in one meal?

"The answer to eating in peace in that castle is no by the way," James told Harry.

"Bet you could help overhearing," Sirius muttered, he hated nosy know it all's, having dealt with a few of those himself, and Hermione appearing again at this moment was not encouraging.

Sirius blinked at unintentionally saying the same thing through Ron, and James and Remus busted out laughing at this parallel.

Lily was smiling to herself, privately agreeing with this girl about her boy getting caught and losing points, but as all four boys in the room were grumbling about her, she decided to keep quiet.

"Well they've got a point," James agreed with the pair of boys saying it was none of her business.

"What?" All four adults said to the mention of Neville not being back from the hospital wing.

"Did Madam Pomfrey leave the school?" Remus asked with real concern.

"Any decent medical wizard should have been able to fix a break," Lily said, worrying her lip, "he shouldn't have been gone this long."

James and Sirius were both exchanging worried looks as well. Hoping that Harry would find out why, James quickly read on.

'At least you acknowledge you're breaking school rules' Lily thought with approval at Harry's slight apprehension about breaking more in just one day after just having got away with one.

"Good," all three boys agreed. At Lily's still sever face Remus said, "since they're going, they might as well get there early and have the advantage."

She rolled her eyes at this while James and Sirius were privately laughing in agreement.

"Who's that in the common room?" Sirius asked in concern, remembering at once Percy the Prefect.

"You're not going to like the answer," Harry muttered to himself, still rubbing his temple a bit, he really should remember something about this night.

"You're right Harry," James said, "we don't like the answer."

All three boys were frowning. This girl was reminding them more of Severus then Malfoy was. Malfoy may be a bully and an obvious git, but he was harmless so far.

This Hermione on the other hand was very clearly nosy, and for a group that had some very private secrets, nosy was the worst trait you could have. It was one of the reasons they had hated Snape so much, he was always trying to poke into their business.

Harry was still feeling rather defensive of this girl, yes right now she seemed awful, but he really thought that there had been something. A recognition in her name that meant the same thing to him as Ron's name. Friend. Had he been wrong? It seemed that way, he would just have to wait it seemed.

"Thank Merlin she didn't tell Percy," James muttered, "or this would have been even more of an offense."

"To bad you couldn't turn her into an angry goose," Sirius grumbled.

"And now she's bragging to boot about what a good littler girl she is," Remus said in disbelief.

"Now that's sweet justice," James cackled the moment the Fat Lady was described gone, unable to count the times this had happened to them. "Now she'll be caught out as well."

"Oh," Sirius deflated when Hermione didn't do as expected, "hadn't thought she'd follow them."

"Really, she's never gone to long, it would have been better if she'd just stayed behind," Remus agreed.

Through all of this, Lily did agree to an extent that this girl was being just a bit overbearing. Yet, she still felt Hermione had the right intentions, and she most likely would have done the same thing given the chance. Not to the Marauders, she would have let them get in trouble without batting an eye, but to a lonely first year, sure.

James balked at such blatant pigheadedness from Hermione actually thinking his son would back up a pretentious girl, getting himself into more trouble! Sirius actually put his face in his hands in disgust.

"Who?" The three boys said sharply, despite their blasé nature about this little act, they still didn't want Harry to get caught, and hearing a snuffling noise was bound to lead to that.

"Mrs. Norris doesn't snuffle," Sirius said in surprise to Ron's guess, "she sneaks up on people," but then again, he couldn't think of who did snuffle.

"Is Neville alright?" Lily asked with high pitched concern, what on earth was he doing out there in the middle of the night!

James read on quickly for an answer and was relived it turned out he'd just been sleeping out there.

"Was he really so tired he couldn't make it back?" Remus asked, part concerned, part amused. He'd fallen asleep in some pretty random places around the castle to.

"Oh," all four said in surprise, but at least forgetting the password cleared things up, and they knew he wasn't in trouble.

All four adults smiled at this, Harry was such a sweet kid asking about his arm.

"Then why didn't he go to dinner, if Pomfrey mended it in seconds? He'd have just gone to the common room with everyone else?" Lily asked.

Remus snorted in amusement and told her, "she may have fixed it in a minute, but Madam Pomfrey is the biggest worry wort at that school. She would have kept him there for at least two hours checking him all over and making sure he didn't have any side effects, like shock, I could go on."

"I'm sure you could, considering you practically lived in that wing once a month," Sirius muttered.

"What's the curse of the bat boogies?" Remus at once asked curiously.

Before Sirius could start speculating, James read out the rest about Hermione not having the chance to use it on them, and they all pouted with disappointment at being denied a new curse. Lily just looked at them in disbelief they'd wanted to see that used on Harry, and would have happily demonstrated the idea playing in her on head on them for it if Harry wasn't laughing so hard at their expressions.

"Up?" Lily asked. "Gryffindor Tower's on the top floor, what on earth were you coming up from to get to the trophy room?"

"We found a secret passage and wound up on the fifth floor," Harry told her distractedly, there was something about going to the trophy room that was really bugging his mind, like he should be angry about his visit. Perhaps Malfoy insults him more than duels him?

"That a boy!" James said with pride, still grinning like a fool his son was so prepared for this duel he pulled his wand out before it even started.

"Oh I hope Malfoy just chickened out," Sirius snorted "that's teasing material for the rest of his life."

"Why that little-" Lily began before cutting herself off and hissing under her breath about such a little Slytherin scum putting Filch on them rather than arriving himself. The boys couldn't decide what they were more shocked at. This utter display of an underhanded deed, or Lily cursing him out for it.

They were quick to get over their shock though, and added several other words in agreement.

Harry was looking around at all of them, mostly his mum in confusion. "I don't get it, you said you didn't want me out at night, why would Malfoy doing this bother you?" True he was as mad as them, but he never would have expected this.

"It's the principle of the matter," Lily sniffed, "if you're going to break the rules, fine, but at least have the courage to face them. That was the most cowardice thing I'd ever seen."

James was now smiling to himself, realizing this was one of the many reasons she had ended up in Gryffindor.

Sirius verbally agreed with Lily, adding on, "yeah, even Snape would never amount to this. At least that git would show up."

Remus was shaking his head in disgust and said, "honestly, I half expected him to show up with both friends to try and outnumber you, but never this."

Still disgusted, James quickly read on, hoping Harry would have the sense to hide and sneak away, then again, with Mrs. Norris there, that would be even more difficult.

"Anyone would hide from Filch's ugly mug," Sirius huffed.

"Oh no," all five of them said, wanting dearly to strangle the pair of kids falling into armor at a time like this, but James read on quickly before anyone could say this.

"Oh, I'm sure yelling at them to run helped," Remus muttered.

"Very clever, hiding place, Charms corridor," James breathed, "accidental I'm sure, but still good use of the secret corridors all the same."

"Let's just hope Filch didn't manage to follow them," Sirius agreed.

Lily had her lips pursed, unwilling to admit that she was very pleased indeed her son had gotten away with this.

"Is this really the time for 'I told you so's'?" Remus demanded of Hermione.

"Yes I gathered for myself Malfoy tricked us," Harry grumbled to himself, not really liking this pointed out to him now any more than the 'I told you so.'

"Good idea," all three boys agreed, Hermione didn't clearly didn't need Harry's validation to be told she was right to continue doing it, so why encourage her.

"Oh no, not Peeves!" Lily groaned, unable to stop herself this time.

"So you really don't want them to get caught?" Sirius asked slyly.

"Certainly not in this manner," she told him, going a bit red in the face.

"Well they still might not," James said bracingly, "it all depends how you handle Peeves."

"No," Sirius was the one to groan this time, "that Poltergeist will forever do the opposite of what you ask of him. You could have said any number of things other than don't tell!"

"Well I didn't know that," Harry defended himself, still not feeling right. Could it be Filch caught up to them, and they were still going to get in trouble? No, this felt like something worse, but what?

"Peeves still might not turn them in," Remus said slowly, "he'll get bored if you just go along and say 'Oh we don't care if we're caught' and stuff like that."

"This is Harry's first encounter with him though," James said as he considered it, "let's see if he thought to do that."

"No," all three of them groaned at once for Ron actually taking a swipe at him, oh now they were in for it.

This time Lily really did face palm at Peeves shouting at the top of his lungs where these kids were for all the castle to hear. She was far more concerned with them not getting caught to comment on how that was a bit melodramatic of Ron exclaiming how done for they were.

"Oh thank Merlin," James sighed in relief Hermione knew such a spell as Alohomora at a time like this.

"Peeves isn't going to tell," Remus explained at Harry's and Lily's confused looks to Peeves delaying Filch by enforcing him to say please.

"Why on earth not?" Lily demanded, not willing to admit how relieved she felt.

"Cause he hates Filch more than anyone else in that school," Sirius said, "so he can't pass up the chance to mess with him."

"Though he may have told another teacher, maybe even Filch if he'd come up and said something besides 'Quick'," Remus agreed.

"Forever love that poltergeist," Sirius laughed.

"Don't tell me you walked into a teacher's midnight grading," Remus groaned, that really would be too much, but it was hard to imagine what else would be a living nightmare at a time like this.

"What?" All four of them yelped in shock, okay that they hadn't seen them winding up in the forbidden corridor coming.

The longer James went on to describe a monster of a three headed dog, the paler the whole room got. This was very clearly not one of Hagrid's animals like Fang, an overgrown puppy. No, this was a real beast, something that would surely eat their little Harry if he didn't get out of there, now.

"RUN!" Sirius yelled so loudly, he startled the baby. Remus got up and moved to sit beside Sirius, making goofy faces at the kid to calm themselves both down, while Sirius bounced him up and down.

James and Lily shrunk in a little closer to their Harry, taking what little comfort they could that he was alive and with all four limbs between them.

"Cerberus," Remus muttered, unable to stop himself, he even kept mentally listing facts about the mythical beast, until James managed to continue with a shaking breath.

Such was the fear in the room, after all just because Harry was okay didn't mean his friends were, and they had no guarantee that their boy didn't just witness a death at age eleven, no one could muster up a comment to the honestly laughable comparison of being caught or eaten alive!

James kept reading in a hurried tone even if Harry wasn't paying attention to which way he was running, wanting them all to get back to the magically protected common room before he could relax again.

Sirius let out a bark like laughter, unable to contain his relief any longer, at their startled looks he explained, "oh, just surprised the Fat Lady would still bother asking why they were out after the many times all the students have done the same."

James shook his head, but began relaxing a bit. If that monster had somehow managed to chase them, it would have caught up to them by now he was sure. Now he just wanted a head count.

Remus grimaced with sympathy, yeah he could understand the idea of Neville's fear and never wanting to speak again after witnessing something like that.

While the other two seemed more relaxed now, still on edge at such a near death threat, but more at ease, Lily and James weren't. It hadn't yet mentioned Hermione, had she somehow been left back there, had the dog gotten her? Despite her attitude, they did not want to hear that she hadn't made it back.

"Oh thank goodness," both parents breathed the second she was mentioned, no matter her mood.

The other three gave them odd looks, but Lily then surprised them by rounding on Harry and saying, "swear to me right now you never went near that thing again."

Harry went bug eyed at this, backpedaling away from her more in fear that he couldn't answer her then anything.

James clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder in reassurance before giving Lily the stank eye, "really love, I know you're as worried as the rest of us, but you know he can't do that."

Lily deflated at once and apologized, Harry accepting it instantly.

Remus was now frowning a bit, rubbing his jaw as he truly thought that over, "Ron has a point though, what on earth was Dumbledore thinking, keeping such a thing in the castle."

"Oh no," Sirius said, going as white as before, "oh Merlin no."

"What?" The other four said in real fear, he looked about ready to pass out.

"Think about it," he said in a whisper, after all he'd been calm the longest, so he'd had the most time to actually think on this. "Why would the dog be there? I was wondering that to, and the only thing I can think of is, what's new this year? Remember that grubby little package Dumbledore had Hagrid pick up, well did Hagrid ever say who it was going to be delivered to?"

"You're not suggesting-" Remus began, feeling a little sick himself.

"Oh you can't be," James blurted, looking from the book to his friend and back again as if wishing someone had lied to him.

"Dumbledore would never put the student's in danger like that," Lily began weakly.

"Got any other ideas?" He demanded of the room.

No one was noticing that Harry was going very pale himself, though for a different reason. No, he had promised he wouldn't continue digging into his memories, but oh how they were trying to force their way to the surface now. Sirius was right, his gut told him that, and he would just have to ignore the onslaught that was trying to shove its way forward for now.

The other four were still sitting there in stunned disbelief, so Harry said quietly, "I'm sure there's gotta be some reason for the dog being there. How about we just keep going, and if the dog's still there next year, then we can be more worried, yeah?"

"Next year," Lily said faintly, "I never want you going onto the third floor again, let alone in there next year to check on that thing."

Harry kept quiet in fear that his gut would blurt out that he was going to see that dog again, maybe even sooner than that.

James kept going just slightly bemused now, far more caught up on the mystery of this now that all the kids were safe, and quite agreed with Hermione's assessment of that dog guarding something.

"No," Remus groaned, placing his face in his hands and shaking it, "no, no, no, no-"

Sirius reached over and put his hand on his friend's shoulder, "It's alright Moony, I'm sure Harry will be fine."

"Oh it's not that," he said, without looking up, "I'm know for a fact Harry's just fine. No, I just can't believe you caught on to something before I did!"

At this, all tension finally left the room as the family on the couch burst out laughing at Sirius' face.

"Run that by me again," Lily asked, sure she'd heard wrong about being killed was worse than being expelled.

Only after James had reread that sentence, did she look to the ceiling in disbelief, while Sirius came out of his shock and said, "she really needs to sort out her priorities. Really, expelled is worse than being killed now? How highly does she put her education?"

"I really wish you hadn't just tried to confirm this," James groaned, tossing the book over to Sirius for his turn rather than looking to Harry and agreeing with his guess of Hagrid's trip to Gringotts having more to do with that package now at the school.


	11. HALLOWEEN

After passing the baby to Remus, Sirius began his chapter with high spirits, but before he could start there was a familiar clattering in the kitchen. Lily got up to go in and check on it, calling out to the others, "It's Click, he's back with Peter's response."

She came back in with a bright orange screech owl perched on her shoulder, who was clicking his beak in excitement.

As she walked over to the perch over in the corner, she told them, "he said he would try and come by tomorrow morning. Here you go boy," she crooned as she deposited Click from her shoulder next to his water bowl.

Hickory came stalking back into the room, bright green eyes watching the bird, dark brown fur on his tail twitching in excitement, but none of the adults seemed to take notice. The two pets chased each other about all the time, but neither had ever harmed.

"So, has anyone thought how to go about explaining this to him?" James asked, waving about the room unnecessarily.

"Slowly," Lily said, plopping back down beside Harry, "we didn't take it very well at first either, so I would suggest keeping those two out of the room at first," Lily said, gesturing first at Harry, then at Sirius.

"Hey," he yelped, "what does that mean?"

"You know exactly what that means," she responded, "you are tactless."

Sirius huffed and grumbled a bit before reading.

"Still a slimy git, that Malfoy" James muttered.

"No," groaned Lily, picking up a pillow and burying her face in it. So there it was, instead of backing off when coming face to face with danger, her son just wanted to keep going.

The four boys though were quite pleased, the three adults unable to deny that they certainly wanted Harry to go have some more fun, though preferably away from that dog.

"Most likely both dangerous and valuable," Remus said. "There not exactly exclusive."

Harry and Remus shared an amused smile as they said much the same thing, Sirius deciding against making a crack about repeating commentary.

"Can hardly blame you for being glad of not having her around," Sirius agreed. Remus may have been a bit of a know it all in school, but he was never boastful about it like Hermione clearly was.

"What's this wonderful opportunity for payback then?" Remus asked, starting to lean around Sirius to read for himself.

"Budge off," Sirius snapped, pulling the book closer to his chest, "or I'll put you back in that armchair."

Remus raised a challenging brow at him, unable to hide his disbelieving smile at such a threat, but allowed Sirius to keep going for now.

"His broom," all three boys said with confidence.

"Well that was the most blatantly rude thing they could have done," Lily sniffed.

At Harry's confused look she explained, "Really, it probably would have been easier for Professor McGonagall to get it personally, and then take it up to your dormitory later. Giving it to you in the middle of the Great Hall like that was like rubbing it in that you got to break the rules."

"Calm down Lily," James scoffed, "you're reading way too much into this. So what? As soon as the school saw Harry on the pitch, they would have known he'd be the new Seeker, which is a huge deal. Getting a broom isn't really that big a deal in comparison."

Lily still disagreed, but as she couldn't do anything about it now, she let it go.

"Okay, that was too little too late," Remus agreed with the absurd bit in the note about him not opening it at the table.

"Where did the broom come from though," Harry suddenly asked.

"There's a budget for every team," James said, "it pays for the uniforms, any broken equipment etcetera. Now a broom, especially one like that, would have maxed out the expenses for the year, but it would have been worth it! The Nimbus line always has been the best," he finished with envy at Ron's statement, he currently had the Nimbus 80, and could only imagine what nearly eleven years from now would do to the line.

"Malfoy wouldn't dare," Sirius gritted his teeth, "no way is he stupid enough to try and take Harry's broom."

"I'm sure he won't," Remus tried to sooth him, "not right under all of those teachers' noses."

"Well he hasn't shown much intelligence yet," James laughed. He continued by giving a slow, sarcastic laugh at Malfoy's brilliant deduction of Harry's gift, but his pleased smile lingered as he shoved it back at his son.

Sirius shrugged to Ron's assessment of other models, having a Comet Two Forty now, it did him pretty well.

"Flitwick saying that'll put a twist in his knickers," James snickered.

All four boys cracked up laughing at Harry's deceleration of thanking Malfoy in a roundabout way for the gift.

Remus recovered first, still rubbing his ribs he said, "I'll give you that one Harry. It's true what they say, you are your own worst enemy."

Harry was still grinning and nodded along with him, while James grimaced slightly, knowing full well that was true.

Lily sighed, unable to begrudge this girl for thinking Harry had been given a reward for breaking rules, since she had been thinking the same thing.

"This one really needs to go hang out with her own friends," Sirius sniffed as she just kept pestering his pup and friend.

Lily blinked spastically for a moment, suddenly realizing that it hadn't mentioned Hermione hanging out with anyone. Had she really not been able to make friends? She hopped the poor thing had.

"That's exactly why first years aren't allowed on the team," Lily sighed, "they're still too easily distracted. He should be paying more attention to his lessons."

"Still not a valid excuse," Sirius argued back, "since every Quidditch player gets distracted around the time of the game, all the way up to seventh year."

"Wish I really could see such a new model," James groaned when it was finally given more detail out of the wrappings.

"Wipe the drool from your mouth, you're looking more like your son by the minute," Remus snickered while wiping a bit of drool from the baby in his lap.

"What on earth?" James began, clearly confused by this comparison of golden posts and bubble wands.

"They're exactly like Harry said, golden poles, but much smaller," Lily explained patiently. James still didn't get it, how could you blow bubbles out of a metal pole, but he wanted to hear about Harry learning some real hands on Quidditch to sit around and think about it.

Now everyone in the room was smiling, even Lily wasn't holding much of a grudge anymore. She couldn't deny that she was happy Harry had finally found something that made him truly happy.

James was grinning widely, boy he missed playing on his house team, and even just hearing of Harry zoom along the pitch was bringing back the good memories.

"Wood's explaining the Quidditch rules the same way you did," Harry told Remus.

Remus shrugged, still smiling, "everyone explains the basics in the same way I suppose."

"I quite like muggle sports," James laughed to Woods confusion of basketball, "even if they can be a bit boring after a while. I don't blame Wood for being curious."

Lily smiled indulgently at him, James liked muggle sports much more than he was letting on, since they came on more often the Quidditch matches, he loved getting into them in his spare time.

"Uh oh," Sirius said, still smiling a bit as Harry's turn at practicing the Beaters position came up.

Lily had her lips pursed with the opposite feeling. If there was one position she didn't want Harry trying it was the Beater, since as the title implied, they took a lot of the hits during the game to make sure the Chasers stayed in the game.

"And harder than a rock," Sirius added on, rubbing his head in remembrance of his experiences with Bludgers.

"Very nice," they all praised Harry's skill of such a hit. Harry seemed able to hold any position on the team if he wanted to. James had a hard time keeping the smile in place as Sirius kept going, giving Wood's promise of a player never having died by a Bludger.

"Almost," Remus and James couldn't help muttering, not appreciating that particular game.

At Harry's bug eyed look while throwing Sirius a really concerned look, Sirius read on quickly, not wanting to give Harry to much of a fright at that story.

"I think a cracked skull is worse than a broken jaw," James sniffed when Wood just kept downplaying the injuries one could get.

"Well, it's perspective I guess," Sirius laughed.

"How you can be so blasé about this I don't know," Lily rolled her eyes.

"Am I going to get to hear this whole story?" Harry finally asked.

"Perhaps later, after this book is over" Sirius told him, his two friends winced again at that memory.

All four of them winced, not even wanting to think of their little Harry in the situation of having his head cracked open by one of those things. Even if he was sitting here, fine now, they never wanted the visual image of another black haired youth lying, seemingly dead. Sirius and Lily may not have that particular memory of that mental image, but they sure didn't want it, so Sirius quickly read on.

"The rules of that Snitch still seems a bit unfair though," Lily said, bringing up a very old argument between her and James, but more than happy at the change of subject just as much as Sirius. "They should lower that to fifty or something."

James shook his head and gave back an old argument, "No, in professional games, the Chasers are expected to be good enough that they can get at least two hundred points like nothing. Since both teams are so evenly matched, you need a ringer, like the Snitch."

Lily just sighed, but then waved Sirius on when it looked like he was about to butt in as well. She was clearly outnumbered in this opinion.

"That game going on for three months didn't happen in our seven years," Remus said when it looked like Harry was about to ask.

"I think it happened two years before we got there though," Sirius said with envy, "so we did get a second hand account from the older students."

"How on earth did classes continue?" Lily demanded.

"They picked the rotations very carefully, it was a nightmare apparently," Remus laughed.

"If he doesn't know muggle sports, how did he get golf balls?" Lily asked.

"They're in the equipment shed, you use them in Seeker try-outs," James said with a shrug, "doesn't mean he has to know where they came from."

"Not bad practice at all," James agreed with Woods pride. Harry catching every one of those on his first night was fantastic! Much better than what they had done in their try outs. Losing three snitches was the least of his problems that day.

"Can't blame the bloke for following his dreams," James said, smiling to himself at what Charlie had done. He had been offered to play for England as well, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it, traveling so much like that, when he had just gotten his new wife pregnant. Some things just had to take priority over Quidditch, something his younger self probably would have fainted at less than five years ago.

Sirius, Lily, and Remus exchanged smiles, yeah, they had to agree with James on that one.

Those smiles instantly vanished with Harry's time skipping. It was no secret that castle was home to many, but Harry declaring it better than the Dursleys wasn't a fun reminder. They really didn't want to hear about another holiday event from those horrid Dursleys, and if they were doing the math right, it was about time for Halloween.

"If I have to sit here and read about Dudley eating all this candy in front of you-" Sirius began, already having a hatred for this holiday after hearing that it was going to be James and Lily's last day.

Harry pursed his lips, hoping that the book really wouldn't mention all the years of this happening.

Sighing in defeat and hoping to just get it over with Sirius read out the excitement of the students enjoying their lessons more now that basics were gone and past.

All five released a breath, thankful it had glossed over Harry's previous experience with the holiday, though the four adults knew the castle wouldn't. The teachers loved dressing up Hogwarts for events. Still, hearing about the feast would be better than hearing about his preschool years.

"Why?" Remus asked. He couldn't figure out a reason Harry would be avoiding Neville.

"I'm sure Neville was going to ask Harry if he'd gone to any of the teachers about that dog," Lily said.

"No, I mean why would you avoid that Harry?" He elaborated.

"Oh," Harry said, "well Mum's right, Neville had been trying to catch my eye for a while and I thought it was because he was going to ask about the dog, and I didn't want to talk about it in class. You know, since it was right next to where it happened."

James snickered a bit at that, saying, "oh Harry, Charm's class is about one of the safest classes to have a conversation, since everyone gets really loud and distracted in that class."

"Good to know," he said, smiling a bit, and not pointing out that he couldn't very well use the information now.

"Hopefully Ron being paired with Hermione during Charms won't change the fact she hasn't spoken to you in a fortnight," Sirius grumbled.

"Liar," James laughed to Flitwicks little story of Baruffio.

"How do you know?" Remus asked.

"I tried it once, and it didn't work," he said, sharing a wicked look with Sirius.

Lily sighed, rubbing at her own temple now, "why am I not surprised?"

All five of them cracked up at Seamus resorting to setting the feather on fire, while James managed to ask, "did it make it easier?"

"No," Harry laughed, "but it made us feel better."

"I don't think waving your arm in all directions will help," Lily said sadly but with sympathy.

"I don't think Hermione correcting him so harshly will help either," Remus agreed, but with more humor for the situation. He did have more experience with helping his friends out, and correcting them like that usually didn't have very good results.

"And Ron snapping at her to prove her point won't do any good at all," Sirius laughed. "If there's one thing we've established about this girl, it's that she's mastered her charms pretty well."

Harry was now frowning again, thinking, wasn't there something important about this spell, and Halloween? Why did those two things together mean something to him? Shaking his head, he let Sirius go on.

Lily frowned, saying, "was the comment about not having friends really necessary? That was a bit harsh."

"The boy just got showed up by a girl who's been pestering them since the train," Sirius defended, "I don't blame him."

"Oh," Sirius winced when the tear struck child ran past. Okay, he wouldn't have wanted the girl to hear that.

"Poor thing," James and Remus agreed, none of them really wanting to hear about a first year reduced to tears.

"And that's why you shouldn't walk around saying whatever you feel like," Lily said, hoping Ron would apologize, or at the least she would meet someone who would make the poor girl feel better. She obviously needed a friend.

"Okay," Sirius threw his hands up in surrender as Lily's glare intensified the more Ron dug his hole about the girl realizing her own lack of friends. "So I take it back, but what good is it going to do us now?"

Sighing, she admitted it was pointless to badger him about this now.

Now all five of them were looking distinctly uncomfortable if she was missing classes and hiding out in a bathroom, she obviously wasn't as bad as eleven year old Harry had painted her. Lily was just hoping someone would go and help the poor girl before this chapter was up.

"Typical," she sighed as something as trivial as decorations made them forget about the crying girl, while Sirius read on eagerly now, wanting to put the sad kid out of his mind as well, it's not like he, or Harry, could do anything about it if she was locked up in the girls bathroom.

Their delusion of peace in the school was shattered when Quirrell told of the troll though.

"What?" All four adults screeched in real fear.

While the two boys on the other couch quickly settled the baby down again, really they might have to move him to another room if this was going to be a constant thing, Lily clutched her chest in fear while James demanded, "the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher not only ran in front of all the students at the school to announce this, but fainted! What the bloody hell happened to the teachers standards at school!" He was pretty red in the face by the time he was done.

"Dumbledore's there," Remus said at once, trying to reassure the others and himself as well, "and he said in the dungeons. I'm positive the teachers will get this under control."

"Yes, but how did it get in?" Lily demanded, trying to control her own shaking fear. She was trying to comfort herself, saying that Harry would be moved to the seventh floor, as far away from that troll as possible, but it didn't stop the worry she had for the rest of the student body. "Something like a troll couldn't have just wandered into the grounds, it has to be let in."

Harry leaned over and wrapped a comforting arm around his mum, avoiding eye contact with all of the adults, especially Sirius who had been trying to catch his eye this whole time. It seemed Sirius had either thought of what Harry had, or guessed where his thoughts had landed.

Hermione. She didn't know about the troll, and both boys knew very well that he, Harry, would take it upon himself to go and tell her. If out of guilt or some other moral reason wasn't the point. Still feeling as on edge as everyone else, Sirius decided the fastest way to get an answer was to read.

"Peeves would never do this as a joke," the three boys said at once. They all knew that Peeves was many things, but he would never actually put these students in real danger.

"Those Hufflepuffs are confused indeed," James frowned, "what are they doing up there? I know their common rooms down in the, oh never mind."

Lily and Remus were both smiling at him as he figured out that anything below the first level was off to students, so most likely the prefects were leading them towards the Library, or perhaps the astronomy tower.

"Merlin no," the other Lily groaned when realization struck her boy about a certain missing student in his house. She feared for Hermione of course, but for Harry to chose now to remember her! "Harry, I'm begging you, please tell me you don't break off and go get her?" Lily pleaded.

Harry chose to say nothing, quite a common response from him when the answer was yes.

The boys weren't too worried, they hated Harry breaking off like that, but couldn't fault the boy for wanting to go help her. Besides, the troll was on the lower floors, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Remus' only question was, "You think she went to the girl's bathroom on the third floor, by the charms room, or ran off to another one?"

"My guess, the one on the third floor," James sighed. "After all, if a girl's going to run off crying, she's going to the closest place."

Lily still didn't look to happy, saying, "I wish you would have at least told Percy."

Harry just kept quiet, trying very hard not to fidget as an answer, since his gut was telling him that he did the opposite of this.

Going even more quickly now, Sirius read all in a rush about Ron agreeing to sneak away so long as Percy didn't know.

Lily sighed and rubbed her temple in frustration, sure that if it had been a prefect other than Ron's older brother this could have gone a little easier.

The three boys were just kind of impressed with the duo at this point. They were risking getting into serious trouble just to help out a girl they didn't even like. They now had no doubts that this Ron was as loyal a friend as could be, which meant he surely was looking for their Harry in his own time.

"Makes sense Percy would come looking for them," Lily agreed, still shifting awkwardly in the tense silence as Harry took off but almost immediately ducked down to hide again. "He probably was doing a head count and noticed his kid brother missing."

"Or maybe even the twins," James agreed.

"Snape?" All five of them said, most of them in disgust, while Lily in confusion. "Why would he be up there?" She continued cautiously.

"Didn't want to see his reflection in the dungeons I'm sure," Sirius muttered in disgust.

"No, I'm with Lily," Remus said slowly, "what possible reason could he have from breaking away with the other teachers right now?"

"Maybe they've already got the problem handled, and he's going to fetch wherever the Slytherin's went," James offered.

"Think the whole of Slytherin could hide on the third floor?" Sirius said in disbelief, they were all trying very hard not to think of what else was on the third floor.

All of them had a reason to dislike Snape, but none of them really believed he would use a school crisis to go and check on the dog, then Lily blinked and said, "no, I think he is checking on the dog." At the look the boys were giving her, mostly for her bright tone, she hurried on, "think about it. If this is the dark object that it's implied, what if this is a diversion and someone's trying to get to whatever's being guarded at the school. What if Severus is checking to make sure no one's heading towards that corridor."

"Yes, but no one on the school grounds would," James said still trying to puzzle that out when Remus went pale as a sheet and shuddered.

At the concerned looks they were all giving him he muttered, "nothing."

"Oh that was something," James said, eyeing his friend in concern, "and I know that look Remus. What did you just realize?"

Not looking any of them in the eye, but instead speaking to the baby in his hands to keep himself relaxed he said slowly, "well, if Lily's right, then that means that Snape wouldn't be the only person who's heading for the third floor. Letting a troll in would be the perfect diversion for a dark wizard..." but stopped quickly when the book slipped out of Sirius's slack grip, and the two parents looked ready to faint.

Giving himself a firm shake, Sirius bent down and without another word decided he needed to keep reading, now, or his imagination was going to be the death of him.

Despite the paralyzing fear they all felt, James was still caught on the last thing he'd been thinking about. Who on the school grounds would allow this to happen? Sure he hated Snape, but James couldn't believe even he would put the student body at risk like this. Dumbledore trusted him enough to let him teach at the school, that must mean he wasn't the Death Eater they all thought. It didn't mean he had to like him. No, for the time being, he would focus on every word Sirius said, keep closely to his son for reassurance, and have faith in what his wife said about his arch enemy's motives.

What little they'd been clinging to moments ago vanished when Sirius just kept going to describe a smell, it's meaning worse

"You're not serious?" Lily said through numb lips.

It was a testament to how much this whole situation was scaring them all that Sirius didn't even flinch at his favorite joke. He was too busy looking dumbly down at the book and the words that meant something he never wanted to think of.

Hoping against hope that Snape was just really smelly for some reason, he tried to keep going without stuttering. It didn't last when the troll was described in detail.

Remus was mentally calculating how much worse this night could get before he promptly vomited from stress.

The other three were still too numb to believe this. A possible dark wizard was running around on the same floor as their little boy, and now the troll had somehow managed to find his way up to that very same floor?

Still trying to get through this without slurring his speech from worry, Sirius kept reading, trying to control the fear pitching his tone.

"Run!" All four of them whispered, wanting nothing more than to teleport there right at that moment and stop this horrid night in its tracks.

Harry on the other hand was feeling something else entirely. Another memory, and a powerful one at that. Something about this troll was very important, and the room it had gone into.

Rubbing his temple furiously, he didn't notice the others having a brief conversation on whether their luck was good enough the troll had stumbled across the three headed dog, and the two would simply kill each other while the boys made it safely back to the common room.

With any luck they were just being paranoid about a dark wizard creeping about, or with good luck the two monsters on this floor would kill said dark wizard.

Still looking pale as death, Sirius forced himself to go on, not willing to relax until his little pup was far, far away from this mess.

"No!" All four of them screeched, attempting to lock that thing in a room was the opposite of helpful.

"Harry, you should have gotten out of there now!" Remus told him like he thought that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Harry simply shrugged, and gently pointed out, "yes, well I'd still like to remind you lot I am fine now."

This did help them relax, slightly anyways. At least Sirius could read on now without feeling like he was going to pass out. Dumb as it seemed, he had almost forgotten his little Harry was safe and sound right here in this room, but the reminder helped to sooth his nerves.

"No, it's not a good idea," Lily grumbled in disgust.

"Great, you did that part without dying," James said almost feverishly, even him and his friends had never done anything this dangerous. "Now get out of there before the troll decides it can break that door down."

"Not helpful. The opposite of helpful James," Lily snapped at him, clutching Harry's hand in her's tightly, only growing more constricting by the second at a noise being poorly described.

'Not the crashing of a door, anything but that' Remus begged the universe.

"Bloody hell," they all whispered, it was possible to get worse wasn't it. Sirius read on quickly before anyone could interrupt this time, yeah it was bad, but the only way they were going to think about relaxing again was to get this over with.

"Never, in all my years," Lily's words came out a jumbled mess as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Of all the girl's bathrooms in the castle," Sirius agreed.

"Just keep going Sirius," James and Remus said together, their nerves getting frayed beyond repair.

No one in the room had to question what was going to happen next. Harry and Ron were going to go back in there and try to get Hermione out, possibly getting the two that weren't in this room killed! They didn't think it could get worse than four of them running into a three headed dog, and they hated to be proved wrong so soon.

After a moment's more pause to collect himself, Sirius did indeed keep going.

"Remarkable," Remus praised Harry's first actions in there, cuddling the baby in his arms.

"We'll discuss his confidence in the face of danger after he's out of it," Lily snapped.

James couldn't help but agree with Lily on this one.

"Great, perfect, the plan worked and now it's coming towards you," Sirius grumbled for Harry, before pressing on even faster than before. Only taking the vaguest of comforts at Harry's presence now, it wasn't going to help the nightmares later he was sure.

Lily pursed her lips while all the boys frowned in sever anxiety. They all knew now was not the time to freeze up, but couldn't blame the eleven year old girl for doing it.

"Drag her out of there already," James snarled. Things just kept going from bad to worse when Ron in turn couldn't get away.

"No, no, no," they all muttered. Having no way to know for sure that Harry's only friend, an innocent kid, would make it out of this alive and safe.

Sirius had to blink a few times to get the blurriness out of his vision, he really almost had passed out that time after reading what Harry had decided would pass as a distraction.

"He did what?" James yelped.

"Something desperate and stupid for sure," Remus mumbled.

Lily was looking from the book to her Harry so fast her neck was in danger of snapping, but she couldn't help it. She was waiting for the moment when Harry's look, right now mostly concerned for his friend, would either morph into pain from a blow from a fully grown mountain troll, or desperation as he realized his friend really might die.

Harry didn't know what was going to happen anymore than them, just his gut reliance that things were going to be fine. He tried to say something about it, but since Sirius had managed to keep going, he kept quiet until he was sure.

"Wand, up the nose...would catch anyone's attention I'm sure," Remus said, looking torn whether to laugh or pass out.

"Just when I thought this couldn't get worse," Lily moaned. Now her son had injured the bloody thing, possibly making it carry a grudge against him.

James and Sirius however, couldn't fault Harry for his actions one bit. Reckless and unthought out, yes, but they both knew without even having to question it that they would have done the same thing under any circumstances.

Still ill at ease, Sirius forced himself to keep going.

"You are not helping," Lily snapped at Harry for his rather vivid descriptions of hanging onto the back of a troll for dear life, while still clutching his hand all the tighter. Harry was beginning to lose feeling in that hand.

Sirius didn't even look up this time, he didn't want to keep being interrupted, but wanted this horrid event to be over.

"No, not the levitating charm!" Remus groaned, "he doesn't even know how to do that spell."

Again Sirius and James felt more pride than anger, as Ron, or many other people with far more experience, would have used this opportunity to make a run for it.

Lily apologized to Harry when she noticed her nails were starting to draw beads of blood on Harry's hand, but when Harry waved it off she turned to Sirius and said, "so long as the three of them get out of there, I don't care what he does. Sirius keep going."

Sirius certainly did, his face quickly flipping from impending doom to slack shock at what Ron pulled off.

"He did it," Remus breathed.

"He fell flat on his face," James said, grinning so hard his face may split.

"The troll should be passed out now," Lily breathed, wishing desperately all this noise must have summoned Snape at the least, and not the wizard who had let the troll in. Her little Hare Bear still might not be out of danger yet.

Feeling relief that the immediate danger was hopefully down for the count, Sirius couldn't help but think along the same lines as Lily, and didn't settle too long on victory before reading.

"Sadly no, it's not dead." Remus answered no one in the room, but still explained anyways. "Troll's heads are the thickest part of their body. Getting clubbed like that will only have knocked it out."

"What he means by that," James said in forced light tones, "is get the bloody hell out of there before something else happens."

Lily and Sirius eyed the two of them, and decided they must have misjudged. Clearly the relief hadn't wiped out their original fear, they were just doing a good job of hiding it.

"Small price to pay when you think about it, troll boggies on your wand," Harry said in disgust, then blinked and realized that he didn't have his wand on him now. He'd felt so relaxed in this environment that he hadn't even thought about it.

Still, he felt almost naked without it, and knew that he would have to have it back to feel truly safe. Yet everyone in the room still had traces of fear in them, even though he felt perfectly relaxed. The danger was gone, and there was going to be something very good happening at the end of this chapter. So he decided to wait until then to bring it up.

"Small payback, wiping said boggies onto the owners shorts." Sirius grumbled with a bit of pleasure. Personally they all felt like doing far worse to that troll for endangering their boy, when in reality the beast was most likely just going to be relocated back into the mountains.

"Thank goodness," they all breathed that the very next thing to happen was McGonagall arriving. None of them would breath a word against the punishment they might get for this stunt, now that McGonagall was there, they knew the kids were safe.

"Really though, I want Quirrell fired," James grumbled, irrationally blaming him for not only alerting this problem, but then acting faint around it after what his son had just done.

"How about we just make sure the whole instance never happens," Remus tried to sooth him.

"I'd be insulted if McGonagall did award you points," surprisingly this came from Sirius, "really now, that would be rewarding for stupid behavior."

"Yes, but they don't know that," James defended his son. "As far as the teachers know, these three just could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of them actually know that Harry and Ron went after Hermione in the first place, causing this mess."

Lily sniffed in disdain and said, "with any luck, the Professor's will just tell them they're lucky they didn't die, and they'll all go to bed. The instance itself should have taught the lot of them about not going to tell teachers when there's a problem."

Remus was shaking his head at all of them, really and they laughed at him for asking questions they didn't know the answer to. Lily was the worse one about speculating what was going to happen.

Sirius came to roughly the same conclusion, and decided the book would give him the answer.

"I hope Hermione didn't go into shock," Lily said with real concern, after all Hermione was the victim in all of this, and she should have started moving by now.

"She got to her feet, I think she'll manage," James said bracingly.

Four jaws dropped in disbelief at Hermione coming to quite quickly in fact, to tell a bold faced lie.

Harry startled them all out of it by laughing.

"This Hermione, who through this whole ordeal has done nothing but preach about the rules, just lied to a teacher?" Remus said in fascination.

"Okay, I will officially admit, I had her pegged wrong," Sirius said, feeling like joining in Harry's laughter.

"Well I've decided I like her," James agreed, beginning to feel a little more normal again.

Lily just shook her head at the lot of them, was that what it took to impress them? Well of course, she was thinking about the Marauders, lying to teachers was second nature to them.

Sirius now read on in light tones, feeling confident the danger truly had passed now.

"All true," Remus agreed with the way Hermione spun the tail now beaming at the book, "though I do wonder if she knows they were the ones who locked her up in there with it?"

"She does," Harry said, then he blinked and began rubbing his temple gently.

"You remember something?" James asked eagerly.

Harry nodded absently saying, "Yes, we talked about it the next morning, Hermione had mentioned something about the odds of it finding her, and I blurted out an apology. Then Ron hit me on the shoulder, but we told her the truth. She still thanked us for it though, saying she didn't blame us."

The longer Harry talked, the brighter his smile was. These two very solid memories of this girl, saving her from the troll and the talk about it next morning, meant that he had to have been right. His gut had told him on the train this girl was a friend, now he finally had proof of this.

"I take back all the things I said about her then," Sirius said sincerely.

James and Remus both nodded eagerly in agreement, then Sirius pressed on happily.

"If it's anything like your face in here pretending, I doubt McGonagall really bought it," James laughed, feeling happy he could do so again.

"Well, since the one time Snape did hand out treats, most of Gryffindor house was sent to the hospital wing with boils, I wouldn't trust it," James said, but added on, "but you'd be surprised what saving someone's life will do to a personality change."

Harry gave his dad an odd look, he had said this as if he had first-hand experience in the matter, but Sirius was already reading on, a bit red in the face.

"That's it? That's all she took from you? Five points?" Lily yelped in shock.

"Like James said," Remus defended with a shrug, "I think McGonagall knows Hermione was lying. Instead of badgering the truth out of all of them, she punished her for the lie, and now she's going to send them all off."

Lily didn't look very happy, but decided to let it go.

Now all four adults had to admit they were rather surprised at this. They hadn't at all seen coming she'd still reward Harry and Ron for their actions in all this.

"Now why didn't McGonagall ever reward us for our stunts?" Sirius pouted without really meaning it. Who knows maybe if he had taken on a troll, she would have? Yeah, no, probably not.

"Don't even get me started on that," Lily threatened, still unable to believe how lax McGonagall seemed to be with how Harry had been acting.

James and Remus were just kind of stunned into silence like Sirius, never in their school life had they seen her reward this kind of thing.

General laughter filled the living room now, it felt good to laugh again after two very stressful chapters in a row, and Harry's inane comment about finally getting away from something as silly as a smell after all that was a blessing.

"You're lucky you weren't killed," Lily grumbled to herself in reprimand of Ron even if he wasn't here.

"No, I doubt Hermione's life factored in after it chose the room," Remus corrected. "After all, he did go in there first. I doubt he would have noticed the door was locked till much after the fact."

Harry nodded, feeling a bit relieved. He really had been feeling guilty for this.

All three boys were smiling at this. They had already apologized for their initial feelings towards this girl, and were now ecstatic that they had been wrong. Harry had another friend, someone else who could help him through what was obviously going to be quite a time at school, and a bloody smart one at that.

"All getting detention on your first night at school and winding up outside the forbidden forest is another," James agreed, "but yours works to."

Both Harry and Lily gave appreciative laughs at this, and Harry determined he really wanted to get that whole story eventually, but then Sirius called out, "chapter's over, Harry did you want to read again?"

Harry nodded and eagerly reached out for the book. Before he paused to the next chapter though, he asked, "um, I realized that I don't have my wand. Any chance it was on me when I wound up here?"

Remus didn't even hesitate as he said, "oh, yes. Sorry about that, precautions and all," then he dug out the wand and passed it over to Harry.

He beamed as he studied his wand for a moment, feeling a warmth tingling his fingers all over again, before tucking it away and picking up for the next chapter.


	12. QUIDDITCH

I don't say it enough, but thank you all too every single person who reads and reviews this. The support honestly helps me so much!

* * *

"One chapter," Lily stated to the ceiling. "I just want one chapter where I don't feel like my head's going to explode."

Harry gave his mum a sideways look, considering how he felt right now. Content mostly, whereas before he'd felt some high tension in his gut. He certainly felt like something important was going to happen before Christmas, an important memory, but since he couldn't put a finger on what he just said, "let's just remember the good parts hu?"

"I'm feeling a bit peckish," Sirius said, eyeing the next chapter warily. He really didn't want to think of Harry going back to that dog, and his reaction wasn't exactly reassuring, so he stalled a bit, "anyone up for lunch?"

Lily was the only one who hesitated, she wanted to keep going, have a nice chapter without a panic attack, but since the boys were already getting up, she decided to follow them into the kitchen.

After a nice comfortable lunch, they were all feeling much better, and only then did Harry read on quickly. The book was hurrying along as well, time skipping along to November, and the Quidditch season beginning.

"Yes!" All four boys cheered.

Lily decided that a game of Quidditch, so long as nothing to bad happened, would be a welcome relief. She changed her mind though practically at once. "I don't like this," Lily said at once. She hadn't even considered the first game of the season, and who Harry would be facing, until she was reminded of it.

"Relax Lily," James brushed her off, "yeah I know, Slytherin isn't my favorite house, but Harry doesn't seem to have a grudge with any of them except Malfoy. I'm sure it will be a fairly simple game."

Harry wanted to disagree, he had a rather odd feeling that he was about to be tossed around by something, but his mom actually did relax beside him, so he decided to just keep reading.

"Humm, the whole school knows Harry's the new Seeker, what a conundrum. Could it be that the Gryffindor team didn't have an official Seeker, and that Harry had been sent a broom?" Remus asked redundantly.

"Yeah, but who could make that leap?" Sirius chuckled.

As Harry's grey pallor grew with the schools jokes of this, James quickly reassured, "don't worry, you've shown nothing but natural talent. If you don't want to hear me say that you'll be brilliant, then at least let me tell you that I'm sure you won't fall off."

Harry actually laughed at this, looking relaxed again at once, thanking his dad.

"Besides," Sirius said brightly, "the student's aren't allowed to follow you around with a mattress. One year a group of Hufflepuffs got away with a net, but-ouch."

Sirius sat rubbing his arm while Remus looked quite pleased with himself. Harry decided to keep going before anyone else could try making him feel better.

"I'm glad you found Quidditch Through the Ages," Sirius said, "though if we're being honest, you really should be able to quote that book before you're ten."

"Does that have something to do with the fact you read him that as his bedtime story every time you babysit?" Remus asked slyly.

"To be fair, so do I," James laughed.

Lily couldn't help but smile at this, she could never begrudge her boys for this.

"The 1473 World Cup sounded like a blast," Remus said in surprise, he hadn't known there were seven hundred kinds of fowls.

"Now there's a time I'd like to be teleported back to," Sirius said in reverence.

"What?" Lily yelped. Considering she had stopped attending Quidditch matches after her first year, "I never realized Seekers got the most injuries."

"Why?" Sirius snorted. "Weren't you at like, every game?"

"No," Lily snapped, "I went first year for the fun of the game, until James started using it as an excuse to sit by me. So starting second year I avoided the pitch at all costs. I only started going again seventh year."

"In professional games," James began loudly, to explain Harry's very confused look, not realizing it was for the avoiding his dad comment. "Sure in the school's game the Beater's will try to knock them off when they get close to the snitch, but it takes years for Quidditch players to hone the skill of keeping an eye on all the players at once. Only the pro's notice the subtle ways seekers react, and then they attack preemptively, causing quite a bit of damage. Not even seventh years are quite that good."

Lily couldn't decide what impressed her more, James logic that actually made sense, or the fact that he was actually able to calm her down.

"Again, the referee's thankfully never disappeared at random happened at Hogwarts," Remus laughed.

"Sent a Quidditch Captain through a vanishing cabinet once, never found out where he ended up, but he did deserve it," Sirius said brightly.

"Please tell me he came back?" Lily asked.

"He might have," James said lightly, "why on earth would we know?"

Lily just sighed and decided to let it go for now, no way would they be acting so calm about it if anything too bad had happened.

"Well that's a relief," Sirius said brightly. "Hermione wouldn't have been as much fun if she hadn't relaxed about that rules thing."

Harry gave him a sideways look, but couldn't find anything wrong with that statement.

"Wow," James laughed, "Hermione's really already begun second year spells?"

"The Bluebell Flame isn't that hard," Remus scoffed.

"You mastered Defense spells the fastest, so we don't need to hear this from you," Sirius rolled his eyes, though he did wish one of them had come up with the idea of putting it in a jar, could have had some fun with that.

Harry was smiling in fond remembrance at the memories of just hanging around with his friends, but there was something about Hermione and this blue fire he thought he should remember. Perhaps he had just been as impressed with the magic as the adults were?

"Why?" Lily asked lightly. She was still not very pleased about the way Snape had treated Harry his first potions lesson, but since none others had been mentioned since, she hoped that he had lessened the comments on her son. She certainly still cared enough about her old friend to question why he was limping.

"Oh don't start that," James groaned, "we've already got Remus asking those kinds of questions."

Lily huffed and politely asked Harry to go on.

"Technically the fire isn't against school rules," Lily said, "you are allowed to practice on the grounds so long as you don't have to be in any classes."

"Snape looking for an excuse to get others into trouble, not that I remember," James muttered to himself.

"Books not allowed outside? Then he should have been in detention every day of the week," Remus spat in disgust.

"That isn't even a rule," Lily snapped.

James and Sirius felt delighted that these two had been the one to point this out, since they felt that if they had, Lily might have snapped at them about it.

Not even Lily could muster up anger at Ron's comment about his leg hurting, though she didn't go so far as to agreeing with him like the boys did.

All three boys winced, not really wanting this awful reminder that Harry simply couldn't write to them and ask for a copy they knew one of them would have of Quidditch Through the Ages. Or, more preferably, they would simply march up to school and take the book back for Harry.

"No, Snape couldn't refuse you if you confronted him in the staff room," James agreed happily, "because it isn't an actual rule."

"There's my smart pup," Sirius added happily.

"Was a student getting told off?" Remus asked with interest, not sure what other horrible sight could be in the teachers lounge.

"Snape and Filch in the same room eh? Conspiring to put the student body in detention I'm sure," James muttered.

"Oh dear," Lily frowned, genuine concern lighting her features at the news of bandages and a mangled limb.

"Perhaps an accident in Potions class?" Remus speculated.

"Then why wouldn't he fix it himself?" Sirius rebutted, "he's not that incompetent."

"Again, one of the nicest things you've ever said about him," Lily said in approval.

Harry was frowning, rubbing his temple again. There was something he should remember about this. Something about the dog... he decided to simply read on rather than pressure himself again.

All four adults looked at each other, puzzled by the comment of three heads and why Snape would be around that dog, but then Lily reminded them, "we never did find out why Snape was up there, but we did agree he was checking on the dog. Perhaps things got out of hand?"

"Was he injured when he showed up in the bathroom?" James asked Harry.

Harry puzzled for a moment, trying to remember back, and saying slowly, "I think so, yeah. I wasn't exactly watching him walk, and he sat down ignoring me during all the classes afterwards. So I can't say for sure."

Lily nodded and decided that was good enough for her.

The other three just admitted they didn't have any other reasonable option.

"Now that was very brave," Sirius laughed, "you caught him with his pants down, and still asked for your book."

"Was a bit overtly rude though," Lily huffed, that was quite the overreaction for Snape to just start shouting.

James was scowling at the thought of Snivellus yelling at his son like that. He wasn't feeling as much pity like he was earlier.

Harry wasn't paying them much mind, happy the book had gone right to his telling Ron and Hermione his conclusion of the events.

"After it?" Lily spluttered, "now that's going too far."

Harry frowned over at her, still not able to understand why she seemed so defensive of Snape this whole time, then the boys backed her up, Remus saying, "Yeah, I've got to agree with her there Harry. Dumbledore trusts him, and despite his questionable past, I doubt even he would try and steal something from the school right under his nose."

James and Sirius shared a look, before verbally agreeing with their friend. They really didn't like him, and most likely never would, but even they couldn't see that.

Harry frowned, not really appreciating this, but as he had no hard evidence, and their reasons did make sense, he let it go for now.

"Despite my evidence that he's got troll blood in him," Sirius said sadly, "again, I've got to say not. One Nimbus two thousand please," he even held out his hand towards Harry.

Harry actually laughed then, mostly because, he felt in his gut that Sirius was right. That feeling hadn't let him astray so far, and he trusted these people, why stop now? He continued in more confusion though onto Hermione's argument of why Snape couldn't be the suspect, though they all clearly agreed with Ron on what that dog could be arguing.

"A question I'd still like answered," they all agreed.

"His ugly mug will give anyone nightmares," James tried to laugh off the idea a teacher of his was giving his son nightmares.

"James," Lily snapped on instinct.

James surrendered at once, though still not fully able to hide his smirk.

"Why do we keep missing on all the good chapters?" Sirius groaned as Harry's first Quidditch game was a humongous deal, possibly the largest yet!

"I'll trade you Harry," James offered.

"No way," Lily said at once, "he's half way through."

Both boys huffed and crossed their arms in an almost pouting gesture.

"Maybe it's best you don't eat then," Remus agreed, "I'd hate for you to be sick."

"That wasn't comforting at all," Harry told him with a straight face. He wasn't as nervous now as he was then, but he truly did want to do a good job during this game. If he was being honest with himself, he hoped he did a good job just for the sake of seeing how happy his family would be if he won.

Remus actually looked a bit embarrassed at this, so Harry said, "but it was good advice, which I'm pretty sure I use." Then he read on.

Lily huffed, wondering if James might have been lying to her, just a bit, to make her feel better about that Seeker getting hurt the most fact, even other students were saying it now! Too late now though.

"Well at least your advice was better than that," Harry told Remus, who both started laughing.

"Can't count how many times Peter and I broke our binoculars," Remus said with fond remembrance. The high of watching from the stands something happening even higher above their head often caused even higher emotions.

"Thank goodness for the Reparo Charm then," James laughed.

"A bed sheet banner? That's so sweet," Lily said at once, happier than anything that there were people there to cheer on her son.

All of the boys had to admit that, yeah, that was a really sweet thing for Harry's classmates to have done.

"Wood doesn't change his speech?" James asked. Sirius just shrugged, though he had to agree, that would get boring.

"I thought Ron said Charlie was Quidditch Captain though?" Remus asked. "Why would they know his speech? This should be his first year as captain?"

"Oliver was co-captain," Harry said, as he had asked the same thing later that night, "and since it was Charlie's last year there, he let Oliver give the pep talks to the team."

"Oh yeah, the or else look," Remus laughed lightly.

"Now that look I know all too well," both James and Sirius coursed.

At Harry's questioning look, James explained, "the Quidditch captain, when we joined the team in our second year, guy named Vosper, was a bit of a fanatic."

"That's putting it lightly," Sirius laughed, "but considering he went to play for England, it clearly paid off."

"Oh, I wouldn't put it past him to have some trollish blood," James snickered.

Lily beamed, clearly that banner meant just as much to Harry as it had to her for him to be saying it made him feel lighter.

The second the game began; "Yes!" All three boys said eagerly, it had been far too long since they'd heard a proper game of Quidditch, the last world cup had been seven years ago! Since it had happened in Syria, only James' and his parents had been able to go. The other boy's families hadn't been able to make it, for various independent reasons. Of course they all listened in on the wireless to every game. It was going to be a thrill to see their little Harry in action for the first time.

"Brilliant," Remus laughed at such commentary from Lee Jordan.

"Oh I'm going to like him," James and Sirius agreed.

"Though I still doubt he could beat you out Moony," Sirius added on.

Remus beamed at his friends, privately thinking they were probably biased, but flattered all the same.

The news of Katie being hit in the back of the head with a Bludger wasn't taken as well. "What?" All four of them yelped in concern.

But Harry quickly reassured them, "It was a glancing blow, she just lost hold of the Quaffle." Seeing them all relax, Harry quickly kept going to Gryffindors first score.

"Yes!" All five of them cheered. Even Lily couldn't deny she was enjoying this, as this was exactly what she had been hoping for. A nice relief from the death in the previous two chapters anyways.

"What?" All four of them said in confusion to some random switch to the crowd.

Harry was looking genuinely confused, he had no idea, but he kept going."Oh," Remus said, blinking a moment before readjusting, "it just switched point of views again."

"Ah," the others said, just a little thrown off since this hadn't happened since the beginning of the book. Harry quickly readjusted and read on.

"Always a good plan," James agreed with Wood's strategy for Harry.

Sirius frowned at one of the Weasley siblings wearing a wristwatch, saying, "now they really should have known better."

"They're only third years," Remus defended.

Sirius easily let it go, rookie mistake it was, but he couldn't claim he'd never made those either.

"All the conversation you really can have up there," Sirius agreed with a slight laugh.

"Now that was just a dumb mistake," Remus agreed. Pucey dropping the Quaffle in the middle of the game felt ridiculous. "You do have to maintain some focus on your own job."

All three boys were too hyper for Harry's first catch to say what idiots those people were for not paying attention to their own part of the game like the other plays shoulder have been. Honestly, they would have been the same way stopping in midair to watch, but perhaps they were biased.

"Oh no," Lily paled at once. Wham could never mean anything good!

Harry kept reading quickly, there was no point in worrying them when he knew he hadn't been hurt badly.

"Foul," All three boys cried in outrage. James adding hotly, "that's blatching! A Chaser's not allowed to block the Seeker, the two should never even intersect."

Smiling at them for his defense, Harry still kept reading, this time to sooth their nerves.

"At least that's fair," Lily said for them when the foul was indeed called.

They nodded, only slightly appeased.

"I feel so smart," James said with pride when Ron was the one to ask what a Red Card was instead of him for once, he finally wasn't the pure blood in the dark.

"I'll agree with Hagrid, maybe a Red Card should be a thing," Lily muttered.

Remus shook his head and said, "there's not enough reserve players in the teams for someone to get sent off every time there's a foul."

Lily huffed but let the matter go.

"Commentator having a problem remaining unbiased? Sounds like someone I know," Sirius muttered to a blushing Remus.

"Now why does that remind me of someone," James began in an offhand tone of voice, as Jordan kept going in the same style, trying to force back laughter and doing a much worse job of it than Sirius.

"Alright, all of you," Remus said, going even more red in the face.

Harry was still laughing at all of them, and determined he would have to hear a full Quidditch story soon, but kept going with his own for now.

"Never let this Lee kid graduate," James couldn't stop laughing.

"What?" All four of them said in real concern, brooms shouldn't lurch.

"Did someone run into you again?" Lily asked.

Harry felt eager now, this was the important thing he had been feeling, something about his broom bucking him would be important. Glancing up he saw all of his family's concerned faces and he quickly said, "I'm fine, no permanent injuries, I don't even think this time left a bruise."

"This time?" Lily balked, "How many times do you fall off a broom?"

Harry pursed his lips, but as he wasn't sure he actually wanted to remember that, he decided to keep going.

"You didn't get a defective model did you?" James asked with worry when the problem only continued to get worse.

"I would hope not," Sirius snapped, "or I'm going to be having some real problems with someone." All three of them agreed viciously.

Harry was very happy that he was the one who got this chapter, his voice reading this in such a calm manner seemed to be keeping the other four from really freaking out, though they were all on the edge of their seat with tension.

"The commentator doesn't notice?" Remus said, frowning in agitation.

"I would think that would be a spectacle, the Seeker suddenly playing bucking broom," Lily agreed, nerves coloring her tone.

Not even the light humor of Jordan cracking jokes about broken noses could break the tension in the room now.

"Not even his friends," Lily demanded of no one, but it was growing more maddening by the second no one was seeing this happen to him.

"Not good, very not good," Sirius muttered, the higher Harry's assent was described the faster his feet tapped in agitation, like he wanted to bolt to his feet and grab his own broom to stop this.

"This thing really needs to pick what point of view it wants," Remus grumbled in agitation as once again focus was switched off Harry, but thankfully to Hagrid who finally seemed to take notice of this.

"At least someone noticed," Lily breathed, hoping Hagrid would now realize what was going on, and go get one of the teachers. It helped nothing that the next words out of Harry's mouth was the crowd collectively gasping.

"What?" All four demanded when Harry paused for breath, then baby Harry began crying again.

Remus had a hard time calming him down again, this really was becoming too frequent for the poor kid.

"I'm fine," Harry repeated soothingly, then hurried on so as not to keep them worried that he was in fact still holding on to his wild ride with one hand.

"Exactly how high up were you by then?" Lily demanded, not even noticing the way her voice cracked, or how high it was.

"Not a scratch remember," Harry reminded, managing to avoid answering.

"No," James said at once, as if Seamus was in the room asking if this was Flints doing. Diverting his attention for the time being, it helped to speak to Harry for a moment, "it takes very powerful, dark magic to..." he trailed off, losing all color as he realized what he was saying.

"It must have been a dark wizard who let that troll in," Sirius whispered through numb lips.

"A holiday is one thing, but this is a school event in the middle of the year," Remus muttered, instead of fear creeping up in him though, he was getting mad. He trusted Dumbledore, he was the only headmaster who would have ever given a werewolf a chance to attend school like a normal child, and so he had to trust his judgement about this as well. He said so aloud, "If Dumbledore trusts Snape, then I think we shouldn't start pointing fingers-" he began, but at the confounded looks his two mates were giving him, he hurried on, "but if Snape really did pull one over on him, then I get a crack at him."

Lily's lower lip was trembling. Yes, she'd heard the rumors same as them, more probably since she kept an ear out, and went into the public wizarding world more than all three of them. Yet, deep down, she had hoped they were just that, rumors. If she found out that Severus really had-

Her thoughts were cut short as Harry said, "what on earth are you lot talking about? What exactly did Snape do?" There was clearly a history hear, and he really wanted to know what it was. He hadn't ever realized he'd never gotten his explanation earlier, he'd been so distracted. Clearly no one else had wanted to bring it up, as it was such a sore subject that they all started to flinch away again.

Sucking in a deep breath, Lily whispered, "Harry dear, that really is a long story, but," she began when Harry looked about arguing, "I promise we will tell you after this chapter. I think these are things you should know. Right now though, I'd still like to hear your feet are safe on the ground again."

'Or know already' he thought to himself, rubbing his temple again. They were all implying something, and it was that old memory pain again. He should know the answer, know exactly what they were talking about, but the information was lost to him, for now.

James, Remus and Sirius all exchanged dark looks, unable to decide if they were angrier at what this book was implying Snape was trying to do, or more upset at Lily's reaction, or lack there of in their opinion.

"No," Lily hissed, still refusing to believe it, no matter what Hermione spotted across the crowd. "Harry, keep reading," she instructed when it looked like the three boys were about to explode.

"Why that-" James began at the top of his lungs mind you, so before he could get any farther Remus bolted out of the room, the baby in his arms. He made his way quickly upstairs, set up a monitory spell, and then delayed even longer by checking the diaper, and doing other sorts of things that really didn't need doing right at this moment. Still, it did what he had intended, calmed him down.

In that moment, when he heard that Severus Snape was cursing Harry, his little cub, he was angrier then he had been in his entire life. He had been outraged when he found out Harry had been locked up in a cupboard, disgusted at the treatment he had to endure after this, and yes, even beyond reproach with fury at Harry nearly losing his life by a three headed dog, and not two months later, a troll.

Through all of that though, he could handle. He could control himself by telling his nature that, Harry was fine. Sitting right across the room from him, safe and comfortable. Not to mention the perpetrators for all of those crimes were out of his reach. If he attacked a house of muggles, he would be killed for sure, they wouldn't even consider Azkaban for his kind. The two monsters could be anywhere in the world at this moment in time, and even then he couldn't blame the beasts for their actions. They were mindless monsters.

Severus Snape was attacking Harry. That one thought just kept circling round and round in his head like a death drum roll. He knew how to get a hold of Snape, right now. Knew well and good that he had a grudge against Harry, simply for living. Yet never, in all his life, would he have attached that to attempting to kill the innocent boy.

His hand was curled into a fist in his hair, the pain grounding him slightly, when a small little fist tapped it. Blinking the red out of his eyes, he glanced down at the baby in his arms.

Remus loved Harry, loved him like he was his own. Remus could never have children of his own, he would never dream of it, so for all intents and purposes, he thought of Harry as his own. When James had told the three of them that his wife was pregnant, he had turned to Remus first, offering him the title of Godfather. It was because all three of his friends knew what Remus did, that he most likely would never settle down, never have his own family. It had just seemed right to make him the official part of Harry's life.

Remus had to actually remind his friends though, that he legally couldn't. The Ministry would never allow such a thing. That moment however, had changed his life. That very day he had intended to tell his friends that he was going to get a job at Gringotts as a curse breaker. Then, after hearing James' wishes, he had changed his mind. James, while still unemployed, was looking about to get an Auror job, though Moody didn't think much of him, James was making leaps and bounds to prove himself. Sirius was having to prove himself to, though in a different way, proving to the Ministry that in these dark times, a Black was refusing to join the rest of his family in Voldemort's ways.

Peter, as one of the smallest and sneakiest of the group, was practically on call for the Order of the Phoenix, while Lily only had a week left before her maternity leave ended and she would have to go back to her full time job of working at the Department of Magical Law enforcement.

Thinking about all of this, his friends, family, and the little baby cuddled up in his arms, managed to calm him down. He was right to have left the room, since even now he could hear yelling below, and he never would have been able to control his temper, 'the monster within' his mind muttered snidely, down there.

Feeling much calmer, though still murderous and willing to help in any way that James and Sirius would allow, he put the toddler, whose eyes were growing heavier by the second, down into his crib for a nice long nap, put up a few spells to alert them downstairs when he woke up. Then made his way back downstairs.

The scene he walked in on gave him a brief pause. Lily and James were yelling in each other's faces, and Sirius had his wand out and was barking at Harry that he needed to move, now.

The spat between the married couple was familiar enough, those two had argued almost constantly while at school. Granted, they still argued almost constantly now when they were married, but it was certainly in lighter tones then what he was witnessing now.

Harry and Sirius' argument on the other hand looked far more pressing, so he quickly made his way over there, putting his hand on Sirius' shoulder and whispering, "you know he's right. We can not do anything about it now."

Sirius made to pull away, but then his grip tightened all the more on his shoulder and he said in more forceful tones, "I know you want to kill that bastard, and so do I, but getting thrown in Azkaban right now won't solve anything. We'll keep our word to Harry, and finish these books before we take care of him. All of them."

Sirius was still shaking, but he looked a mite bit calmer as he turned flashing eyes on him. Breathing like a wounded animal he said, "we didn't promise not to kill anyone else. Just those Dursley's."

"I said," Harry jumped in quickly, "you wouldn't leave the house until we were done. You promised Sirius, please."

Whatever lingering feelings Remus may have had about wanting to leave as well dissolved the second he looked into Harry's bright green eyes. He looked near tears, he seemed truly frightened. Not of them though, but of them leaving. Whether it was an abandonment issue, highly possible given the boys living conditions or lack thereof, or just a fear of the unknown, outside this house, neither of them could guess.

Still, they both agreed, and then Sirius turned to him and whispered back, "I'm sorry I didn't-" he began, but Remus cut him off, saying with a small smile, "Don't be. Harry's always been able to calm me down, and apparently he always will." The two friends shared a genuine smile before turning to the bickering couple.

Neither had drawn there wand yet, which was small consolation for the row they were having.

Remus went over to James while Harry began talking softly to his mother. James was angrier than Remus had ever seen him, and who could blame him, but he made the same argument to this friend as he had with the other. James didn't exactly calm down, but he did stomp over to the armchair and flop into it, not looking at anyone in the room.

Lily took a bit more convincing, Remus wasn't even sure where she stood in all of this since he hadn't been listening to the actual words in their argument, but she to finally sat back down, throwing a nasty look over at James just to make sure her feelings were clear to him.

Harry finally breathed in relief, looking around at all four of them, before sinking into the couch beside his mom. Guess he really should have remembered something like this beforehand. Still, it was quite a shock to him as well. Yet he couldn't shake this feeling, something he would never speak aloud to anyone in this room for fear he was wrong, that he didn't think Snape had done this. Why though? There was no other suspect, who else could it be? Taking a deep, long breath, Harry managed to continue reading.

It was a testament to how tense the atmosphere was that no one made the comment at how much they appreciated the twins actions, circling below Harry like that. It's what any good teammate would do after all. All four breathed a silent bit of relief, at least this wouldn't end so badly. Even if Harry did fall now, they all had confidence these two would catch him.

James screwed up his face when attention was actually diverted to Flint still trying to play the game, but he was still too keyed up to comment on this open and blatant disrespect of the game, and especially his son's life.

Harry felt like his seat was on fire through Hermione's journey through the stands, and he understood why his brain offered the idea when he read of what Hermione did to help him.

Now all three boys smiled vindictively. Lighting Snape on fire was the least of that man's worries, and it would certainly do the trick of breaking his eye contact.

None of them glanced over towards Lily to see her reaction.

"Pity that she took it with her when she left," Sirius broke the silence, wishing Hermione had let that fire burn far longer.

Lily still couldn't bring it in herself to open her mouth though.

"Compassionate lad," James said, a small, barely visible smile made its way onto him. Neville breaking down like that amongst everything else going on was probably the one lone thing to distract him at a moment like this. Still angrier then he would probably ever be in his life, but Harry had just said he was safe and back on his broom. He could breathe a bit easier now, "I hope you start hanging out with him a bit more Harry."

Harry briefly glanced up, smiling at his dad and deciding to say, "yeah, I may not be as close to Neville as I am with Ron and Hermione, but I really feel like we are friends." He went back reading with more unease though, landing as he did wasn't exactly making him feel better.

All four of them winced at that, not blaming him in the least for coughing, which may well lead to something worse coming out. That had been quite a stunt after all. Lily even privately thought that if anyone made fun of him for vomiting, she would probably praise Harry for standing up to them.

None of them expected that glint of gold to be mentioned.

"What?" The tension finally began seeping out of the room as all four of them spoke in unison again.

Lily pursed her lips back up though when James threw her a haughty look, but Remus and Sirius leaned in eagerly, Remus saying, "you can't mean-"

"Oh I think he does," Sirius said eagerly at the look on Harry's face.

All four of them were still angry beyond belief, but finally had to acknowledge that, like with the Dursley's, they couldn't do anything about it now. So, they would accept this, and in the meantime think of new ways to get away with murder.

Harry read on eagerly to the showering of praise his win got him on the field.

"That's going in the books," Remus cheered, while James and Sirius looked like they were going to tackle Harry to the ground hugging him.

Laughing with glee, all four boys spent a good ten minutes talking about the good, highlight points of the game. Harry adding in a few details the book had left out.

Lily sat back, smiling slightly at them all. They all avoided a topic that could cause strife to begin again, and as soon as it appeared they were running out of steam on the subject, Harry hurried on, ignoring another feeling in his gut. That Snitch was important. Why though? Because it was his first catch? He would just have to believe that for now, no matter what his organ told him.

"It still counts," James said in a sing song voice, nothing Flint or anyone said was going to take that away from Harry!

They were honestly surprised to hear him being in Hagrid's next. "Not the way one usually enjoys a victory," Sirius said indulgently.

"But as it's Hagrid, we'll allow this," Remus finished for him, then they both cracked up laughing, finally feeling like themselves again.

It didn't last long, Hagrid's reaction to the news of Snape attacking Harry felt like the worst possible reaction right now considering all Lily had, or really hadn't, been saying.

Swallowing bile, none of them made to say a word. If they were stuck in the house with each other until these books were over, they should probably at least try to avoid killing Lily, who didn't look any more up to chatting then they did.

"Fluffy?" They all said, looking faint.

"He named it Fluffy?" Remus repeated.

"Cerberus is a Rottweiler with three heads, they're not even fluffy dogs!" Sirius yelped.

"That's what you caught on," James demanded, fighting back a smile.

His two friends smiled at him, happy to see he was shaking off the visages of his fight as well.

"Now why would you interrupt him," Remus demanded, "if you'd said nothing, he probably would have just kept talking and told you."

"I was eager, and he was already starting to trail off," Harry shrugged.

"They didn't ask you to talk about this guarding business to begin with," Lily finally spoke up, avoiding every eye in the room, "he just asked about the name of the dog. You were the one who was about to tell him."

Silence for a long, drawn out moment, before James finally spoke up, "yeah Hagrid, you can't tell Harry not to ask a question he never asked."

The couple shared another long moment to simply stare at one another, and Harry only began reading again when the two started smiling at each other.

The moments Snape's name was brought up, they broke eye contact and looked to opposite corners of the room again. Harry really wanted to get this chapter over with already. It did make him feel slightly better that Hermione was on his and Ron's side now about Snape.

"Talk about an understatement," Remus muttered.

"Hermione's know it all bit finally came in handy," Sirius said in genuine and pleasured surprise, he wouldn't expect an eleven year old to know about jinxing someone and eye contact.

"Again, I will say, why did you cut him off," Remus actually laughed this time at Harry continuing to do that.

Harry smiled to himself, but didn't speak aloud what he was thinking, since the others looked like they were finally heading towards a good mood again. Privately he was thinking that he had blurted just then for the same reason he had blurted out that thing about motorcycles back during Dudley's birthday. He had simply learned, and hadn't unlearned yet like he had now, that nobody listened to him when he talked. So when he had interrupted Hagrid, he had been talking to himself more than anything. The exclamation of surprise probably hadn't helped much though.

Instead he just shrugged by way of answer, and read the last sentence.

"Why would Hagrid be furious with himself mentioning Nicolas Flamel?" James asked, "he's just some old alchemist."

"How do you know?" Lily demanded.

"He's got a chocolate frog card, but it's super rare. I think they made like five. Plus, he's also mentioned on Dumbledore's."

"Of course you'd know that," she said to the ceiling.

Harry beamed at the pair, pleased beyond measure that they were still talking to each other, and passed the book to his mom saying, "chapter's over. Did you want to read?"


	13. THE MIRROR OF ERISED

Lily nodded as she took the book, checked her spot, then closed it and eyed her son briefly before saying, "I'm keeping my promise son. You wanted to know about Snape," she sucked in a huge breath and said, "so here it goes."

She was the only one who spoke for almost a solid half hour. The three boys didn't trust themselves to speak on the matter without cursing something in the process. When she was finally done, ending with the last bit of information they knew about Snape's current whereabouts, or thought they knew since they were rumors, she looked pleading at her son, begging him to understand what these other three just couldn't. There was too much bad blood between the lot, but Harry didn't have to inherit his father's grudge, simply based on this books facts about him.

When she was done, Harry nodded slowly to himself, rubbing his temple again. Everything his mother had just told him came as a surprise, but he also got that feeling again. The one he had when they had told him Remus' story. He felt right again, whole, like another part of his life was explained. Then he met his mother's eyes, and said to the room at large, "alright. I'm not going to say anything then. I'll wait until these books are over before making a final judgement call."

Lily beamed and threw her arms around her son, thanking Merlin she had such an understanding boy.

Then when she leaned back from the hug, she stood up, marched over to James in the chair, and practically dragged him into the kitchen.

Once in there and hopefully out of earshot of the others, she said, "I'm sorry."

James blinked, he hadn't been expecting that. Before he could say anything though, she kept going, "It's just that, I have to believe Sev wouldn't do this. You know counter curses are done in the same manner, and-" her voice caught on a catch in her throat.

Taking this moment, James cut in with, "Lily I'm not mad at you for defending him. Lord knows if I was, I'd never not be mad at you." She made a face at him, but he pressed on, "I was just hurt when you made it seem like you were going to stand there and do nothing when it said he was going to kill our son."

Lily shook her head hard from side to side, her hair whipping into her face as she spluttered, "No, I would never!" Then, when she saw the look in those hazel eyes, he still looked beyond hurt and unbelieving she rushed on, "I was just trying to get you to see that, you have been wrong about him before. At least try to do what Harry is, give him these seven years at school to prove that he's not the man you think he is."

James' face scrunched up. He would never like Snape. How could he, when James still had a lurking fear that one of these days he was going to come and try to take Lily away from him, for good this time. He had never shared this fear with anyone, but it still lurked in the back of his mind every night like a growing fungus. He thought his friends would tell him he was ridiculous, and Lily would probably slap him for suggesting she couldn't handle herself and take care of her own life. Still, to appease an obviously upset love of his life, he did promise her this.

They made their way back into the living room to find a rousing debate between these three boys, Sirius and Remus were trying to convince Harry that it was a great idea for him to go and pull a prank or two at school. Despite the fact that Harry was out of school and could do no such thing, or already had with no influence from them.

Harry was laughing along and trying to explain that he really thought this was a bad idea, but without any real force in it. He seemed to be enjoying just sitting and talking to them at all.

When the two parents reentered the room, Harry went quiet and looked at the two as if fearing they would start arguing again, while Remus and Sirius took one look at them and began gagging at once.

"Please," Sirius choked, clutching at his throat, "please at least leave the room if you two are going to start making out again."

"We're begging, save poor Harry's eyes from such a sight," Remus agreed in disgust.

Harry was laughing again at once, while the married couple took their spots on either side of him.

James and his two friends began bickering at once, the two of them arguing that this was how they made up all the time in seventh year, while Lily looked about for her place.

Once she found it, she began reading about Christmas approaching, and immediately frowned with concern. Fragile as she felt right now, she might just burst into tears all over again if Harry, A) went back to the Dursley's house and was ignored or B) stayed at an empty castle for the holidays.

The other three looked just as concerned about this, so Harry was quick to say, "I have a great feeling about this Christmas."

At their astounded looks he said, "Really. I think I get a wonderful gift, several actually."

When they all beamed at him with pure joy, Harry decided to decline mentioning that there was something else that happened on Christmas that had been bothering him since he'd laid eyes on his parents. This was not the first time he'd seen their faces, of that he was sure, but like the book had said the Dursley's had no pictures of them. Then why was he so sure on this day that he might just get his eleven year old wish?

Brushing it off, he let his mother go on without a fuss.

"An old favorite gag of Peter's, having snowballs follow those around," James laughed.

"Poor dears," Lily muttered for the health of those owls.

"Yeesh, at least Slughorn put warming charms in there," Sirius grumbled, shivering a bit himself at the sound of Harry's potions class with that cold hearted monster.

"Malfoy really shouldn't talk about himself like that," Remus snapped, anger bubbling up in him again at once for his malicious, but true implications of Harry actually not being the one wanted at home.

Harry wouldn't let himself feel dejected at Malfoy's snip, instead beamed over at a man he really was starting to think of as his Uncle, not that he had anything real to compare the feeling to, but it felt right all the same.

"Seems Malfoys been even more of a pleasure once he's been humbled," Sirius grumbled in disgust, not wanting to imagine that kid being worse to his pup after his team lost a match.

"I'm sure ludicrous frog jokes weren't any funnier to his group then it is to us," Lily said, rolling her eyes at these childish antics.

James grit his teeth so much that it was starting to hurt. He was really beginning to hate this Malfoy brat almost as much as he hated Snivellus who would always take jabs at all four of them, he and Sirius for being rather spoiled and rich, and Remus for his lack thereof. Still, he kept himself quite, for now, no sense in fighting with the book at least.

Harry was just wondering why Malfoy had made that leap. It was true, but as Harry had never even really spoken to anyone outside of his two friends, Malfoy had made quite the pompous jump that Harry wasn't spending his first Christmas back with anyone, made him unwanted at home. He wasn't wrong, but the oddness was there all the same.

"Can't decide if you staying is a relief we won't have to hear about them, or depressing he's going to be in an empty castle," Sirius sighed. He and Remus had always stayed at school together, while James and Peter had nearly always gone home during the holidays.

"Go with the first one," Remus sighed, running his hand threw his hair sadly.

"Oh, Ron's staying! That's wonderful," Lily beamed, while all of the boys perked up at once as well.

"This really is going to be fun then," Remus and Sirius both said, remembering back to all the times they'd had in an almost deserted castle, with tons of victims that weren't expecting a holiday prank.

Nobody bothered to ask why Charlie's siblings hadn't come along, they were sure the parents just wanted to spend some time with just one of their children on a holiday.

"That boy has no boundaries," Lily said in disgust, while all four boys looked like they dearly wanted to punch Malfoy in his face for making a crack about Hagrid like that.

"Gah, can you say timing," Sirius snarled, really he hoped Ron had a chance to shove it to that kid soon without Snape coming around!

"Thank you Hagrid," Remus said to the ceiling in relief. If he had to deal with another instance that Harry got in trouble because no one was there for his side, he might have lost his temper again.

"I meant what I said before," James said, "Hagrid is my favorite person in Harry's life right now."

"He certainly seems to be keeping an eye on him," Lily agreed fondly.

Sirius was still disgruntled Ron hadn't had the chance to punch Malfoy.

"Merry Bloody Christmas to you to," James hissed in disgust for his son still being the one punished!

"And I can't wait to hear all about when Ron does get just that," Sirius said brightly.

"I don't blame you one bit, Harry," Remus agreed. Both Malfoy and Snape deserved some kind of comeuppance.

"The castle always did seem even more magical when they decorated it," Lily said fondly.

"Nah," James said, "we always tried to get as much homework as we could done, so we could enjoy the actual break."

"I'm rather impressed," Lily admitted.

"Sure, we needed all the time we could get to plan out some of our ideas," Sirius agreed.

Lily then chose to roll her eyes at the ceiling.

"Oh," all four of them said when the real explanation came up of all Harry's time in the library was being spent on looking for Flamel.

"Yeah," Harry said sheepishly, "I didn't have Dad to tell me who he was, so we had no idea what we were doing."

James momentary pride and thrill at hearing his son refer to him like that for the first time in his life didn't quite cover the fact that all four adults grimaced at the comment, so to change the subject Harry asked, "You said he was an alchemist? What's that, what do they do?"

James gave himself a little shake before answering, "err, I think mainly there goal is to turn metal into gold. It's a really shrouded branch of magic, which is why Flamel's card is so bloody rare. Had to nearly pay my weight in gold for the thing. His card didn't say much about it, just talked about his interests and his wife."

Harry nodded along and then asked, "So, you don't know what Flamel has to do with this then?"

"No," he admitted, shaking his head, he hadn't had much time to think on it really, but now that he was, all he could come up with was, "I know a lot of papers mentioned he and Dumbledore were working on something together, but I've no idea what. This was years ago to, I don't even think my parents were born, but really I've no idea."

Harry nodded in disappointment, as did the others. None of them had even heard of Flamel, so they had no idea what was going on.

"Oh I'm so sure," Remus snickered, no person in their right mind would believe those kids were just curious about all this.

"Oh Harry," James said, laughing a bit at Harry's mind convinced he'd read the name somewhere, and he was right. "Now you see the importance of reading your Chocolate Frog Cards?"

Harry nodded, hoping his younger self would remember this as well soon. He already had a slight headache from remembering all the books they had sorted through.

Lily couldn't help but smile indulgently at the kids not giving up at Hagrid's warning. She knew better than to berate about their curiosity, she would have to admit even she would have done exactly what they were doing now. The details of the kids search was a bit depressing though.

"There's a new saying," Sirius laughed, "looking for a wizard in the library."

"I can't even imagine that," Remus said in disbelief, "stumbling through books and hoping to come across his name."

"We didn't have a better idea," Harry defended.

"You could look until your seventh year and still not get through half of them," James said.

Harry balked at him, had they done this? "Maybe, but I really think I find out about him over Christmas." Yet he wasn't so sure. Perhaps he was wrong, and they really never did find out the mystery of the tiny package.

Lily simply decided to keep going, Harry was now looking quite discouraged, and she really was feeling bad for him.

Remus laughed at Ron's method in particular, saying, "good a system as any I suppose."

All four adults were now frowning, hoping dearly this object had nothing to do with the restriction section. If it did, it would only heighten there worry about what was being kept in a school full of children.

James huffed at the interruption from the cranky librarian, muttering, "Pince never did like students. Why she works with them is beyond me."

"Can you believe an adult would actually yell at someone to get out of a Library," Sirius laughed, "that's as backwards as it gets."

"I bet she'd know who Flamel was in a second," Lily sighed with agreement to Harry's problem.

"Now you're just being paranoid, thinking Snape's going to know everyone you ask." Remus laughed. "I doubt Snape would even think to look in on you lot looking up some old name."

"We were being cautious," Harry defended, feeling stupider by the minute.

"Don't worry love," Lily said, patting him on the cheek, "they're only messing with you. I'd be more worried if they didn't."

Harry relaxed at once, smiling around at them all again.

"So you plan on spending the whole of your break in there?" James asked in disgust. "Really Harry, someone in that school needs to teach you how to live."

"Oh I doubt they will," Sirius replied for Harry, "have you ever known any eleven year old that can focus during the Holidays?"

"I seem to recall us getting some of our best work done then," Remus argued, glimmers of mischief appearing in his eyes.

"Yeah, but that was something we actually wanted to do," Sirius finalized.

"She could still ask her parents, Muggles or not," Lily said, thinking it over, "Muggles do actually know some famous wizards, like Merlin for example."

"Still, if we haven't heard of him, I doubt a couple of Muggles would have," James said with a shrug.

Lily couldn't argue with that, and it was derailed anyways by the boys beginning their vacation and Flamel leaving their mind altogether.

"Saw that coming," Sirius chuckled.

"Brings back all the good memories," Remus chuckled.

"You stayed behind during break?" Harry asked curiously.

"Oh yeah" Sirius nodded along with his friend, "Moony and I always stayed behind."

Harry bit his lip, wanting to ask why, but feeling it was a bit rude, but then Remus answered for him anyways, "my parents loved me dearly, but it was very hard for them to ah, take care of me during the holidays. The school was much better equipped, so I chose to stay there."

"I hated my house," Sirius said in bright tones, "so I always kept around to keep him company."

"I went home most years," James added on without being asked, "my parents pinned for me if I was gone too long."

"You would think they'd be glad to be rid of your big head," Lily muttered.

James kept going, pretending he hadn't heard that, "and Peter always went home as well. His mother doted on him like no other."

"Poor thing, she's been sick for a month now," Remus said sadly, "which is why we haven't blamed him for not being around too much."

Harry nodded along sadly, and then let his mother continue reading when she realized how depressed the other boys were getting.

"I've never been any good at chess," Sirius rolled his eyes.

"You were always too impatient to learn," Remus chuckled.

"See, it's not just me," Sirius cried as Harry seemed to be drawing his luck for the game.

"You can't blame it all on the pieces," James laughed, "just admit you never could remember which way the pieces went."

Sirius huffed and crossed his arms, mumbling something about ganging up on him.

Lily pursed her lips at the idea of her son really not getting a single present in his life all over again, but quickly read on, keeping Harry's words in mind about how good a feeling he had for this particular one.

Not one of them could think of a thing to say to Ron's sarcasm about vegetable for gifts. They were all too pleased that Harry had a proper Christmas at all to mock Ron's comment!

"You have a musical talent we don't know about?" Remus chuckled in surprise at Hagrid's flute for Harry.

"Doubt it," Harry laughed himself, feeling warm all over at these feelings.

"Maybe you could use it to call your bird to you," Sirius chuckled at the description the instruments noise made.

 **"** Friendly," Harry said, thinking privately a fifty- pence piece was the nicest thing the Dursleys had probably ever given him.

All four adults gritted their teeth in frustration, but Harry was clearly in too good a mood, and they refused to let their moods be sunk as well.

"I'm guessing Ron's never seen muggle money then," Lily smiled at the boys fascination.

"It's official," Lily beamed, feeling close to tears at the way the Weasley's had taken Harry in, the gifts he'd been given from this mother. "We are taking Harry over to the Weasley's as soon as we're done here."

"Might be a bit odd," Remus said, trying not to laugh, "we've never been formally introduced. You just want to show up on the doorstep?"

"I'll think of something," Lily said with confidence, and James chuckled to himself, not begrudging her this at all. In fact they were all thinking to themselves that they really needed to come up with a way to thank both Hagrid and the Weasley family.

"Best kind of gifts you can get," Sirius chuckled for Hermione's sweet treats. Lily was having so much fun hearing of all Harry's gifts, she almost breezed right past the mention of something silvery grey, like a cloak being the next.

"No way," all three boys breathed. It was impossible, that was locked up in the house, right now.

Puzzled, Lily gave them an odd look, but she couldn't deny she was thinking the same thing.

Harry groaned slightly, pressing his fist to his head in pain, but quickly shook it off at their concerned looks, saying, "I, I think I know what that is. I don't-" pursing his lips, Lily decided to quickly read on before Harry pressured himself too much.

"It can't be mine," James said, praying that he was wrong, that his son really had been able to inherit his birthright, "my cloak is here in this house."

"How many invisibility cloaks can there really be though?" Sirius breathed, leaning forward eagerly.

"Perhaps Hagrid found it when he took Harry," Remus offered.

"It's possible," Lily murmured, "we might have tried to hide Harry under it, but of course he would have been crying..."

All four of them were getting exceptionally pale the longer they thought about this, but James still managed to say, "yes, but then why wouldn't Hagrid have given it to him with the flute?"

They were all stumped, and Harry was fighting back the urge to be sick, the building tension in his head from knowing the answer, yet not being able to grasp it...

Lily decided to read on, hoping they would get an answer.

"Quite a shocker at first, seeing yourself invisible," Sirius agreed, wanting to laugh as he thought back on all the times he'd snuck up on people in that.

"A note was in there? Explaining everything to him I hope," James muttered, shifting his weight around in agitation.

"I did what?" James balked. "I haven't lent my cloak to anyone since I left school, why would it be in anyone's possession at a time like this?"

"No one even knows it exists except for the people here," Sirius spluttered.

"And Peter," Remus added on quietly.

Everyone got very quiet as they all thought of something at once. Peter hadn't been hanging around them much lately, Peter had asked to borrow James cloak for a few missions for the Order, what if, James sucked in a deep breath and said, "what if Peter's still alive? He could have borrowed my cloak, but there are a million reasons why he wouldn't be here, or even heard about us dying for ages."

The others all exchanged looks, then Remus asked, "but then why wouldn't he have come looking for Harry?"

James swallowed thickly, but he had no answer for that. None of them did.

Lily reached around Harry to give James shoulder a soft squeeze, saying, "I guess we won't know until we find out, yeah?"

Nodding numbly, he didn't protest as Lily kept going. All three boys had a mix of feelings they were sorting through. Honestly, it may not have been Peter, but even Remus or Sirius in the same circumstance, but it still didn't answer the question of where they would have been for the past eleven years of Harry's life?

There were no answers to be had, so Lily slowly kept going for all the good it would do.

"We'd all like to know who sent it," Sirius grumbled his agreement to Harry's questions.

"Oh, I've no doubt that was once mine," James murmured his confirmation to Harry, who'd already had the sense himself he was right about that one.

"Can't blame you on not wanting anyone else to know about it," Remus agreed, "James didn't show me that thing for almost six months."

"They switched those sweaters," James said at once upon the twins arrival.

"Unless they didn't, because they knew one would assume they would switch those," Sirius laughed.

"Unless they thought you would think they hadn't switched them, because they knew people would think they had, so they did switch them," Remus joined in, smiling at the inept sentence.

"Please," Lily begged, "don't do this to me? We'll be here for an hour, and I doubt we ever really find out."

"Oh fine," James huffed.

"Oh, I doubt Harry's sweater is really any better," Lily said at once in exasperation of those boys.

"I'm sure that maroon clashes with his hair marvelously," Sirius laughed.

"Gred and Forge eh? I'm sure that's exactly what your mum intended to name you," Remus cackled.

"It's Christmas," James frowned, "really, does this Percy ever have fun?" He couldn't believe anyone could tell someone to pipe down on a holiday.

"Well you should wear it anyways," Lily huffed, she thought it was a lovely and sweet idea and could't understand Percy protesting wearing it.

"I'm sure he loved every moment of being frog marched around by his brothers," Sirius laughed.

"And that dinner without the Prefects even more," James agreed.

"Ew," Lily crinkled up her nose, picturing all those mice running over the food.

"I'm sure they made Mrs. Norris happy though," Remus chuckled.

"Dumbledore in a bonnet! Lovely mental image," James laughed.

Lily's amusement of all this increased as well when the festivities included Hagrid indulging so much he leaned over and gave McGonagall a kiss on the cheek, who giggled in response.

"Ugh, take it back," Sirius cried, pressing his fists to his eyes.

"All the teachers have clearly indulged too much," Lily chuckled.

"We always used to get great prank ideas from those wizard crackers," Remus laughed at Harry's shock of receiving a grow your own warts kit.

"Poor Harry," Remus agreed, "I can't stand when people try to backseat play me."

"And it doesn't even seem Percy was doing a good job of it," Lily nodded in agreement.

"Well, you can't blame that one on me," James and Sirius both said.

"Wow, why didn't we ever think of playing keep-away with a Prefect badge?" James whistled.

"Because I would have killed you both," Remus said pleasantly.

"I really hope you figure out who sent you that cloak, soon," James pleaded, eyeing his son for any trace of remembrance as this was brought up again.

Harry was shaking his head sadly from side to side, as mystified as they were.

"You have more restraint than any of us," Sirius told him, "I would have run around the castle first thing when I found it. Not kept it in my room all day."

"Going anywhere in the castle with no one knowing is taking the idea a bit far," Remus said lightly. "It makes you invisible, not impervious."

"I just hope Harry doesn't use it to sneak into classrooms, and set up a trap so that when a certain student sat down-" Lily began hotly.

"That was never proven," James declared, pointing wildly at her.

Lily just rolled her eyes at all of them.

James shrugged at Harry's decision not to wake Ron, saying, "Nah, I used it at home by myself all the time, I took Sirius along with me our first night there."

"Which is how we got caught," Sirius chuckled, "I'd never used the thing before, and we weren't used to sharing yet."

"You two still don't know how to share," Remus rolled his eyes.

"Really?" All three boys demanded in disgust at Harry's choice of destination for this maiden voyage.

"The whole of Hogwarts, and you choose to go to the library?" James demanded, looking faint.

"That's a waist of the cloak," Sirius agreed.

"Leave him be," Lily said before Remus could jump in, "the Library has been on his mind for weeks now, I don't blame him for that being his first thought."

All three boys muttered a bit more, but Lily wouldn't hear it and just moved on.

"Well the Restricted Section's not so bad," James said, picking himself back up slightly, "at least he's doing something he couldn't do during normal school hours."

Lily rolled her eyes, honestly why these boys wanted Harry to be a rule breaker was still beyond her, but she couldn't fault Harry for his curiosity driving him to this place.

"The books might honestly be aware you're there," Remus said curiously, "I doubt Pince used more than a bit of rope to make sure no one snuck back there."

"Good point," Sirius said slowly, "there really might be a spell on those books."

Now very curious, Lily read on to find they were closer to right than they realized, when a book began screaming upon Harry opening it.

"Oh my gosh," James gasped, before laughing his ass off.

"Of all the rotten luck," Sirius cackled.

"It's not funny," Harry mumbled, rubbing his ears in remembrance, "that thing gave me a heart attack."

All three boys were still laughing at this spot of misfortune, even Lily wanted to bite her lip to stop from laughing for a moment, before she remembered, "you know this most likely summoned Madam Pince."

That dried up all of their laughter pretty quickly, James noting, "well, look at it this way, can you really imagine Harry getting into much trouble for sneaking into the Library?"

"McGonagall might reward him again," Remus agreed, his voice still trembling slightly with laughter.

"Really, I swear that man doesn't sleep," Sirius said in disbelief as Filch showed up near instantly to this.

"What a first use," James chuckled as Harry escaped the caretaker with ease using the cloak.

"I'll give you credit, we never thought of that," Remus agreed.

"That's like, the third time you've made the mistake of not paying attention to where you were going," Sirius said in disappointment.

"Well he's gotta learn somehow," James said sadly, wishing that Harry would find another of his treasured objects.

"There are suits of armor all over the castle," Lily said in confusion to Harry's not really much of an observation.

"Yeah, but this one was posed a certain way," Harry tried to explain.

"Okay, that makes sense," Remus agreed.

"Where did you inherit all this bad karma from?" Remus demanded when Filch and Snape arrived on the scene so quickly.

"I think it's retribution for you lot," Lily said primly, "that karma's getting back at Harry for all the stunts you pulled at school."

"Don't say that Lily," James said, clutching his chest in pain, "I'd never forgive myself for that."

"I think it's just Harry's ignorance," Sirius said bracingly, "things should get better the longer he's at school."

"Well I'm glad you figured out beforehand that cloak doesn't make you any less solid," James snickered. "I remember when Peter first got the cloak on his own, he ran straight into a wall."

"He still claims it was an accident and he tripped, but come on," Remus agreed.

"See," Sirius said brightly, "he's learning already." They were all proud he'd managed to slip into a room without being caught!

"Well that is odd," James agreed, "who stashed a mirror in a classroom?"

None of them had any idea, so Lily read on, expecting Harry to shrug it off and ghost out of there. They'd probably never get an answer, and with any luck Harry would go back to the common room without another incident.

"Could you try saying that in English," Remus said, going a bit cross eyed at such an odd transcription in the mirror.

Lily was frowning at the words, saying, "No, that's how it's spelled."

"You think maybe it's a different language?" James asked, leaning around Harry to look.

"None that I recognize," Remus said.

They all passed the book around, taking a look at the odd inscription, but none of them had a clue what it could be, until Sirius said slowly, "Hang on, this first word is backwards."

"What?" Remus asked, leaning over to see what he meant.

"See here," he pointed out, "Erised is Desire spelled backwards, that's the only word though, dang it," he muttered scanning through the rest of it.

"Well maybe," Remus said, taking the book from Sirius, then getting up and going into the kitchen, when he came back, he had a quill and fresh parchment, and he then scribbled down the sentence in the same manner.

At first, they still couldn't make any sense of the words, but then Remus said slowly, "I think I've got it. The words aren't spaced right, but if you fix it like this, it reads 'I show not your face but your heart's desire.' Unless you can find another combination that works?"

James took the paper and looked at it, then at the original and then nodded saying, "No, it makes sense."

Lily and Harry had been sitting there, watching them all with fascination. Lily spoke up, "That was brilliant. I can't believe you three worked that out."

"What, did you think we got through school on our good looks alone?" Sirius quipped.

Smiling around at them, Lily decided not to press the issue, and so she took the book back, rereading that line, and still shaking her head in disbelief, she kept reading.

"What, why?" They all said, in a panic at once, of why Harry would be holding back a scream, they really didn't want to deal with yet another deadly situation already.

"Because I wasn't alone," Harry whispered, so quietly to himself none of the others even heard him.

"Now what on earth?" James demanded, blinking in shock. Room full of people? That couldn't be right.

"That's impossible," Sirius said, "nothing has ever been able to see through the cloak."

"That's what you caught on," Remus stated, looking stunned, "how about the crowd of people in the room?"

Lily was looking expectantly from Harry to the book, but Harry was clearly not listening to any of them. He was rubbing his temple furiously, whispering, "It's them, I knew I'd seen them."

Pressing on loudly over the still bickering boys, she knew by now the best way to settle her son was to just complete the memory.

"Possible," James said slowly to Harry thinking he'd figured out the mirrors trick showing the people invisible or not.

"But wouldn't you have bumped into one of them?" asked Sirius, clearly not buying it.

"Don't touch it," Remus said at once, going pale as a sheet, "it could be some trick, and you fall through and get stuck in there."

Now they were all looking very concerned, wanting to egg Harry out of that room, knowing it was pointless, so they instead comforted themselves with leaning in very close to their Harry.

Lily stuttered a bit, glancing up at her son with shock etched into her face. There was very little other explanation for a woman in the mirror having the same eyes as Harry.

"Oh," James whispered, looking from Harry, to Lily, to the book and back again like one of them was going to scream 'got ya.'

"Well, that was unexpected," Sirius murmured.

"I stand by what I said," Remus gasped, coming out of his shock, "It could still be a trick, personalizing it to a particular wizard."

Lily looked like she was about to start crying herself, but her voice remained steady as she kept going, about herself apparently.

"I don't like this," Sirius moaned, his head dropping into hands as he shook it back and forth. He'd never wished to imagine James inside a mirror of all things. "I really don't like this."

"My poor boy," James whispered, giving Harry a quick hug. This was, by all accounts, the first time Harry was laying eyes on his parents, and it was through a mirror. A possibly dangerous, dark object, that could suck his soul out or something equally as awful.

Both Sirius and Remus and Harry looked like they were going to burst into tears right along with Lily, but Harry was the saving grace as he said, "Remember. I'm here, and I know you guys now. I-I'm sorry you have to hear about this-"

"Don't," Lily interrupted, bucking up her own strength when she saw her son's face, "this is what we wanted. To hear about your life, the good and the bad."

"This just happens to be an awful mix of both," Remus muttered.

All four of them shivered in disgust at their worry finally being put to the test, they still didn't want Harry touching that thing.

Then they all shivered again, as they realized this was probably the first time in his life he had been able to utter those two simple words, what every child called their parents. Sucking in a deep breath, Lily forced herself to go on.

Both James and Lily fought back fresh waves of pain when they realized that this was most likely their parents in the mirror as well, others that Harry obviously had never seen.

Lily's breath hitched slightly as she read that now Harry wanted to fall into this image, this being her worst fear since this had started, and she didn't give the others a chance to panic as she blasted on.

"Oh thank Merlin," they all breathed in relief when nothing of the sort happened.

"Okay," Remus reassessed, "you're clearly drawn to it, but any person in your situation would be..." he trailed off, still trying to figure out the magical property of this object.

"I show not your face, but your heart's desire," Sirius repeated.

"So that's all it will do," James said slowly, "It will just show you what you want most in the world."

"I still don't want you going back," Lily said quietly, "I'm afraid you'll waste away your life staring at that."

"Can't do anything about it now," Sirius muttered.

Lily decided to agree with him, so pushing back the rest of her rising emotions, she kept reading right up to Harry telling Ron about this, and their subsequent conversation about Harry wanting to see Ron's family in the mirror next.

"I don't think it will work like that," Remus said at once, shaking his head.

"Well, we didn't know that then," Harry said, shrugging, trying to remember what Ron did see, and as always, coming up blank.

Sirius made an awful noise, somewhere between a snort of mirth and a scathing rebuke to Ron's comment about the mirror only showing dead people.

James interpreted that noise pretty well, and said for the others, "That was the most tactless thing he could have possibly said, and yet Sirius may have said the same thing."

"It did pop into my mind," he admitted.

All four adults exchanged uneasy looks when the passing mention of Harry not eating was spoken, Remus saying, "may have spoken to soon. What if this thing has a compulsion about it, and you'll eventually just waste your life away in front of it."

"I know I don't do that." Harry said at once, he felt he wouldn't have the same feelings about that mirror if he had. Right now, he mostly just felt a sense of loss, he'd have like to keep that mirror back in his life, so that he could see his parents whenever he wanted, but he was also thinking there was something else. Something important about this mirror, but it didn't involve him, or Ron.

Nodding and feeling reassured, Lily kept going.

"That reminds me," James said as Harry had a task of just finding it again, "what on earth is that mirror doing there?"

"Could a teacher have left it there, and they're going to use it in there next class?" Remus offered, "Quirrell for example, could be teaching his seventh years about dangerous objects."

"Well, since we've still no idea," Sirius rolled his eyes, "how about we just see if Harry can find it again first."

None of them could really decide how they felt about them actually finding it again. They were happy beyond belief that Harry really did know what his parents looked like, before now anyways, but they still feared what this mirror's true power was. Nothing for it now though.

"Well at least it's accurate," James beamed down at his son as well, trying to play that off as a joke.

"That sort of makes sense," Remus agreed, nodding along, "it will only show the person standing directly in front of it."

"Now, let's see what Ron sees," Sirius said a bit eagerly.

"That's his heart's desire," James snorted, "he's hardly shown any ambition, the opposite in fact if his attitude towards his Perfect brother is to go by."

"Let me keep going," Lily scolded, she had a bit of an idea where this was going. All eyes cleared from confusion when Lily did give the whole picture..

"Oh," Sirius said sadly.

"Yeah, I can see why Ron would want to be the best of all his siblings," Remus agreed with a small frown.

James let out a low, throaty whistle, saying, "damn though, I was Head Boy and Quidditch Captain, and the responsibility of all that nearly made me go bald."

"It made you easier to be around though," Lily chuckled.

"Moving on," Sirius said quickly, not wanting the couple to start making googly eyes at each other.

Lily made at him before doing so anyways, Ron's question of this showing the future hitching in her throat at once.

"We can only hope," James said sadly.

"Comparing what Harry and Ron see in there, yeah I've got to give you your do Harry," Sirius chuckled, "you deserve to look longer."

"Leave Ron be," Remus defended, "I'm sure anyone would want to stand around and look at that thing forever if they had the chance."

None of them mentioned what they were thinking now, what would they see? Lily nibbled on her lip in contemplation, but wouldn't let the thought linger as she kept going only for it to be ruined by Mrs. Norris showing up. Her mind went to exactly what Harry's had at the time, was her son about to be caught? Did the cloak work on cats?

"Yep," all three said at once, while James elaborated, "but they can still smell you, and hear you. You've got to be very careful around her, cause if you don't fool her, she'll still run off for Filch."

"Or just bark at her," Sirius snickered.

Thankfully it seemed to work.

"Good," all four of them said, they really didn't want Harry getting caught again, even Lily couldn't deny her son this reason for being out of bed.

"Well that's surprising," Lily said, she hadn't been expecting Ron to deter Harry from doing this, didn't he realize how important this was? "I'm surprised Ron isn't demanding he can go with you."

"Yes well, Ron can simply conjure up that image in his head whenever he wants," James pointed out, "whereas Harry wants to be able to memorize his a bit more."

"Because he's being cautious?" Remus rolled his eyes, he couldn't blame Ron for sounding like Hermione at a time like this.

Even Ron insisting he was serious made no impact on Harry, though it did Lily as she tried to ignore what she'd just said. Sirius opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but Remus quickly picked up a pillow and smothered him before he had the chance.

"Lucky," Sirius said, finally shoving Remus off of him to praise Harry getting back through the castle.

"Who on earth is there at a time like this?" James yelped in shock.

"I've no idea," Sirius and Remus both said.

"It couldn't be a teacher," Lily muttered, "he said 'again' so, whoever, knows he's been there before..."

Harry cleared his throat a bit, and then pointed at the book, smiling slightly. All four jumped guiltily, then James eyed Harry a bit. He had a look on his face, like he might actually remember what was coming this time.

He didn't, but he had a good feeling about this meeting, which is why he was so unconcerned.

"Dumbledore," they all said in shock.

"I didn't even know he left his office," Sirius said in surprise.

"Don't be daft," James rolled his eyes, "he's got to use the loo at some point."

"Really you two," Remus shook his head in disbelief at them, while Lily ignored them completely.

"Well you don't seem to be getting in trouble," Sirius said brightly.

"Remember that time he caught us rigging up one of the statues, and he actually believed Peter when he said we were just admiring it," James laughed.

"I thought he had lost his marbles," Remus agreed.

"So you lot are saying Dumbledore, the headmaster of this school, let's his students get away with breaking the rules?" Lily demanded.

"Yeah, seems like it," all four boys said.

James snorted, saying, "Mirror of Erised? Well that's a clever name."

"How long has Dumbledore been coming there?" Remus demanded, him knowing of all the times Harry's been felt suspicious, especially not having gotten in trouble before now.

"And how did Harry never spot him?" James demanded.

"Search me," Lily said, shrugging.

"Well it's true," Sirius disagreed, "there are plenty of ways to pull off invisibility."

"But mine is still the best," James jumped in at once.

"Well that was kind of depressing," Sirius said, frowning a bit at Dumbledore's description of Ron's mirror image.

"Dumbledore has this way of saying things that sound really smart, but tend to be barmy," James agreed.

"How many mirrors do they have hanging around that school?" Remus asked, that had felt a little ominous to him, a warning about Harry coming across this again for some other reason.

"I think he was just in teacher mode then," Lily suggested, "preparing Harry for the future and all that."

Harry was feeling very frustrated all of a sudden, for some reason knowing quite well that he would come across that mirror again. Why though, he still had no clue.

"I hate it when people point out you just asked a question when asking if they could ask a question." James grumbled. "It's like they're mocking you for using your manners."

"That's why I just blurt out whatever I want," Sirius said happily.

"Err," Remus said, looking at Lily oddly, "want to run that by me again?"

When she did, all five of them exchanged looks and said as one, "Liar." There was no way anyone's hearts desire could be socks.

Harry felt frustrated, shaking his head from side to side. Would this feeling ever go away? Why did he know that answer, but couldn't actually seem to answer it himself?

The other four adults just felt a little frustrated, Lily even saying, "Well that hardly seemed fair. He knew Harry's."

"It is a personal question," Remus disagreed, "I can hardly blame him."

"Of course we would tell you Harry," James told him, "If any of us actually knew of course."

Lily shrugged, slightly agreeing with Remus, and completely behind James on that.

"Well Dumbledore can expect five lovely pairs this year," Sirius said brightly as Dumbledore's gifts were mentioned without his, apparent, hearts desire.

Harry chuckled at his antics, then pondered for a moment why on earth there was an importance to socks in his life? Not relating to Dumbledore, but someone else... it was gone as soon as the idea had come.

"At least you acknowledge it was a personal question," Lily approved.

"My turn," James said brightly.

Remus rolled his eyes but held his tongue that he'd been skipped his turn, but honestly wasn't going to protest either with this track record.


	14. NICOLAS FLAMEL

Despite the emotional baggage of that chapter, James was very pleased indeed that Harry seemed to have gotten the idea of that dog out of his son's mind. He was all for focusing on Harry finding Nicolas Flamel however, or even moving past that and going along his school looking for something more fun to do, and so read on eagerly.

Though it didn't last as the start only affirmed Harry's nightmares similar to ones they'd all be having soon.

"Not appreciated, not one little bit," Sirius said, shuddering in disgust, and not mentioning that he had a very similar nightmare the previous night.

"Sorry," Harry said honestly.

"It's not your fault," James said, a shade paler than normal, "it's not like you can help what you dream."

"Ah, he'd have only threatened to string you up by your thumbs or something," Sirius shrugged off whatever Hermione's fear of Filch was, since they hadn't actually been caught, it seemed rather funny to him.

"Did she expect you to find Flamel, honestly?" Remus chuckled.

"So we were right the first time," Remus said sadly, "Harry might not figure this out for years."

"Oh come on," James said bracingly, "I'm sure he'll find a Dumbledore Chocolate Frog Card again."

"We don't know how rare they are in this time," Sirius reminded him.

"And he most likely won't reread it if he does," Remus agreed.

"Well then he should start trying to memorize them in his free time," James laughed.

"Beating anyone in Quidditch is always a good motive," James and Sirius agreed.

"Also true," The two players agreed to the statement of harder training's meant less dreams all around, especially nightmares.

Their good mood just couldn't seem to last though, when James dumped the news of who was refereeing the next match.

"What!" The uproar was so loud, the neighbors may have heard that.

"James, tell me you're joking," Sirius said, looking faint.

James just sat there, frozen as he stared at the page.

"But he can't," Lily said weakly, "Madam Hooch always referee's."

"He would have had to get Dumbledore to say yes," Remus agreed, running his hand through his hair in frustration. "Which means that Dumbledore didn't have a problem with this."

"I have a problem with this," James yelped in disgust, "couldn't McGonagall have protested on bias."

They all shared devastated looks, but then glanced at Harry, only slightly reassured that he was still sitting here, looking as upset as the rest of them, but still here. Safe and sound.

"Can't blame him," Remus muttered in disgust, he'd have fallen off a broom or anything as well.

"When does Snape need an excuse to do anything he bloody wanted," Sirius hissed, "let alone be more foul than ever to Gryffindors!"

James couldn't give so much as a passing smile to the news Hermione played chess with Ron because it was something she actually wasn't good at.

"Humility is beneficial in the long run," Lily agreed, distracted. She knew for a fact she wasn't going to be able to settle down again until this particular game was over.

"And a good day to you to," James forced a laugh, being told you look terrible something he well would have said.

"Now that's a sentence I never bloody thought I'd hear in my life," Remus said, looking a bit queasy at Harry's phrasing of Snape's sinister desire.

All three boys forced chuckles at the kids suggestions for him to miss the game, while James pointed out, "good offers, but Madam Pomfrey could fix that in a second."

"You could have a potion's accident," Remus offered, "those get a bit trickier."

"And accidentally poison himself." Lily snapped.

"Got any better ideas," Sirius snapped back.

"Read and find out," Harry said loudly when it looked like they were about to start really arguing.

James threw Harry a grateful look, then read on.

"Which is a bad idea honestly, not having a reserve team," the former Quidditch Captain shook his head, "you should always have a backup team."

"Well you can write him a letter later," Lily muttered.

"Damn," Sirius let out a low whistle, "I'm impressed Neville made it all the way to the seventh floor. Where was he when that happened? Just think of going up one stair case like that!"

"He doesn't know the counter curse?" Remus asked in surprise, "it's a pretty basic curse."

James shrugged, deciding to read on.

"Well that was rude," Lily huffed. She couldn't believe the whole common room, her son, fell over laughing rather than help.

"I can imagine it being a bit funny," James said fairly, "but I'm glad Hermione fixed it," he said at once at his wife's sharp glare.

"Not that Malfoy prat again," Sirius groaned.

"What possible reason could he have for cursing Neville? As far as we know Neville's done nothing wrong to anyone," Remus said.

"Seems to me that boy doesn't need a reason to curse anyone," James muttered.

"Ouch," Sirius groaned in real pain at the idea of hopping up from the library, "had to hop up a whole floor. I can't believe he didn't just go to McGonagall, then he would have only had to go down some stairs, which would be far easier."

"Shame perhaps," James said, "no student wants to go whining to the teacher's if they can help it."

Lily shook her head in disbelief, she thought that was ridiculous, but could hardly say anything since she didn't exactly go to the teachers with all of her problems either.

"I think Ron's advice was supposed to be helpful," Sirius said, mouth twitching, "but it didn't come off very well."

"At least he's trying," Lily said in approval.

"Why that little," James yelped, now wanting more than anything to punch that git in the face, "he has no bloody idea what he just said."

"Someone needs to tell Neville he's the lucky one," Remus agreed.

"That poor dear," Lily sighed, but then she added on, "that was very sweet of you Harry."

Harry smiled at her, knowing he would have done it again in a heartbeat.

"Much better," Sirius said approvingly to Harry, "If that doesn't cheer up Neville then I don't know what will."

"Yes," all five of them cried with joy the second a Dumbledore Chocolate Frog Card was mentioned again.

"So long as you look at the back again, you should at least find his name again," Sirius cheered.

"I think I just remember without having to look, finally," Harry said cheerfully.

"Yes," they all cheered again when Harry turned out to be right. They didn't even want to imagine the frustration if Harry hadn't remembered that.

Lily suddenly burst into giggling, gaining strange looks from all of the boys. "It's just that, I'm thinking James read that Card from memory more than anything, and of all the things he's bothered to memorize," then she trailed off still laughing.

"So Hermione read his name at some point to," Remus said in surprise when she'd darted off.

"I don't know, she seems like the kind who remembers everything she reads," James said slowly.

"Maybe it was something else Harry just read, maybe a book on alchemy," Sirius suggested.

"Still an overachiever," Lily said indulgently at the little girl getting extra books from the library.

"Well that's just rude," Sirius laughed at Hermione shushing a question.

"You'd think Ron would be a bit more excited at having finally found out a lead," James chuckled at an understandably grumpy retort.

"So she did read his name elsewhere," Lily said in surprise.

"Guess even Hermione can't remember everything," James shrugged.

None of them noticed both Remus and Harry seemed to be thinking really hard about something.

"Well none of us knew it either," Lily said, rolling her eyes at Hermione's shock the two boys didn't.

After James got done reading that passage on the Stone, he looked up to see everyone in the room looking at him like he'd grown a second head.

"You mean that's a real thing?" Remus spluttered.

"You've heard of it," Sirius demanded.

"As a rumor," he admitted, "like James said earlier, alchemy is one of the most untested studies. There have been stories for years that someone made a stone that could utilize its magic, but I didn't think it was real."

"You still could have mentioned something," Lily said, staring at him wide eyed.

"Did anyone else catch on that Elixir of Life?" James demanded. "This thing sounds like a piece of eternity in your hand."

"You really think that's what's being hidden in the school?" Lily asked in concern.

This brought the other four boys up short. They had been so excited at figuring out this mystery, they hadn't come around to this yet, but now Remus said slowly, "well then it may not even be hiding from a dark wizard. Anyone would want it."

'Someone like a disgraced Death Eater' Sirius thought bitterly, but chose not to say that. He really didn't want to start another fight.

"Why now though?" James asked slowly. "Do you think Flamel may have passed away and he left it to Dumbledore, or-"

"Hello, Elixir of Life," Remus reminded him, "I don't think that's it."

"Well, now we know what it is," Harry said, finally cutting them off, "now let's so what we did with that information."

All four adults turned wide eyed looks at him, Lily demanding, "Why would you have to do anything with this? You followed your curiosity because you stumbled across this, fine. Now you know, and you can let it go."

Harry gave her an exasperated look, but when he looked around and all the boys were nodding in agreement, he decided to keep silent. There was no need in preemptively getting yelled at for what he was sure he had done. If his gut was anything to judge by.

James felt quite excited that at least one of their curiosities about this book had been answered so far, so he read on.

"How current was that book?" Remus asked in curiosity of the mans age.

Harry shrugged, saying, "I don't know, I didn't ask."

"Yes," Lily said slowly, not arguing the point of it being hidden in the school "that makes sense, but are you telling me Dumbledore couldn't have come up with a better idea than a place full of children?"

"What better place than in plain sight," Remus offered.

"Yes, but since we've already established that someone did figure it out, and is after it," James said, "I'm going to agree with Lily on that one."

Sirius couldn't help but agree with them as well, thinking that anyone that had the powers to break into Gringotts and not get caught could certainly make it into the castle as well.

Lily pursed her lips, James had read the kids suspect with a little too much conviction, and the other boys around him were all nodding in agreement. Unbelievably though, none of them verbally agreed.

James was a bit distracted though at the passing mention of Harry's next DADA class, werewolf bites. Before either of his friends could open their mouths to make a sarcastic comment Remus snapped, "can it you two or I'll shove your heads into a lake."

Harry was biting his lip to keep from laughing, while Lily asked in genuine curiosity, "I remember some of that lesson, but I thought there was no cure for a werewolf bite?"

Remus sighed, looking up at the ceiling in self-hatred before answering, "there's not, but there are some solutions you can use on the infected wound so it won't scar as badly."

Harry cocked his head to the side as he investigated Remus, but thought it rude to ask to see Remus' bite, so he just let James go on.

"So long as you don't fall off your broom again, sure," Lily muttered, still in disagreement to Harry playing this next game, though she knew it would go unheard.

"Did anyone put in an inquiry why your broom acted up last time anyways?" James asked, realizing no one had mentioned this.

Harry shook his head, saying, "No, Professor McGonagall asked me about it, but when I told her I had it under control, she gave me a suspicious look and walked away."

All four adults exchanged uneasy looks, this didn't sound like the Professor McGonagall they knew. Something was up with their old head of house, she was acting very odd around their Harry.

James shook his head, still concerned, and decided to keep a closer eye on her actions.

"I really can't believe my luck," James said with disgust, "I finally got a Quidditch chapter, and it's going to be awful."

Harry was gnawing on his lip for a moment, then he suddenly cracked up laughing.

"Just what was so funny?" James demanded.

"I don't know," he said honestly, "I just feel like there was another record broken in this game. Can't remember what though."

"It wasn't the record for the most bones broken by the youngest Seeker was it?" Lily demanded.

"No," Harry answered right away, shaking his head.

"Well, then let's get to it," Sirius said with high spirits now.

"Still can't believe Dumbledore allowed this," Remus couldn't help but say in disgust again.

The news, and mood, didn't improve at Harry's sneaking suspicion Snape now knew the kids knowledge of the Stone. All four adults grimaced in disgust at this idea of Snape reading Harry's mind. If Snape had learned Legilimency, Harry's life would be a disaster.

At Harry's questioning look at all of them, Sirius said bracingly, "there is a form of magic, very difficult though, that can kind of do that. I doubt Snape can though, so you should be good. It's really difficult to learn."

Harry cracked a smile at that, then asked his Dad to go on.

"Afternoon," Lily interrupted, clearly distracted with worry and catching on a small detail she asked, "games usually start at eleven in the morning?"

"I don't remember, but something weird happened that morning," Harry said, shrugging. "Dumbledore made an announcement the pitch was going to be closed, so it got pushed back. I never found out why."

The four of them were privately wondering if, perhaps, Dumbledore had heard about the last game, and had been investigating something? Why would he have waited so long since the last game though?

"His friends are really chipper aren't they," Sirius chuckled, though he couldn't blame them one bit for this feeling of fear at never seeing Harry alive again, he'd likely be feeling the same way if the kid wasn't right in front of him as old as him...no matter how odd that still was.

"You mean the students don't just carry their wands around with them everywhere?" James asked more in shock of this than their plan. He always had his on him, even while on the pitch.

Harry shrugged, saying, "No, Ron told me that teachers started discouraging it, so that fights wouldn't break out in the stands."

"Fair enough," Lily agreed.

"Oh I hope they use that spell on him," Sirius said with glee, then when both parents threw him a severe look, he tossed his hands in the air and said, "outside the pitch of course. I don't want them to have the excuse now."

Lily huffed, but James was appeased enough to go on.

"How is that not pressuring him?" Remus demanded of Wood's disfavorable 'pep talk' to Harry.

"It's not like Harry can magically catch the Snitch sooner just because he wants to," James agreed.

"Really?" All four of them said, beaming at once to Dumbledore's actual interest in this very particular game.

"Nobody would be dumb enough to hurt Harry with him around," Lily said at once, forestalling at least Remus and Sirius from saying the same thing, substituting Snape's name.

Feeling quite chipper now, sure Snape was still going to be an arse during the game but at least Harry was safe, he read on with high spirits.

"Nah," Sirius said at once to the idea of why Harry thought Snape was in a bad mood. "He always looks like someone shoved a dung beetle up his nose."

"Maybe because of how often you tried to?" Remus offered, fighting back a grin.

"Gah," James said in disgust to Malfoy's insult to Ron. "they really should keep the houses away from each other, at least during a match."

"How on earth would they go about reinforcing that?" Lily demanded, "and that's still not even fair. It is possible to have friends outside of your own house."

All four boys rolled their eyes at her, but it just didn't seem worth the argument at the time.

"I'm so sure," Harry muttered to himself for Malfoy's 'apology.'

"Well now he's just provoking him," Lily frowned. She didn't even play the game and knew throwing the bludger at the ref wouldn't get you anywhere.

Sirius gnawed his lip for a moment before grudgingly agreeing, "yeah, okay, I'll give you that one."

"Someone should call him on that though," James said, narrowing his eyes, "you do have to actually have a reason for penalizing."

Remus sighed and rubbed his brow, this was going to be a long game.

"Can we please switch back to me in the sky," Harry said, frowning back severely. He really didn't want to sit around and listen to Malfoy insulting his friends, and unable to do anything about it.

"I would if I could Harry," James agreed, gnashing his teeth for a moment before continuing.

"Aw," Lily smiled, "I'm glad Neville took your words to heart."

"Because they're true," the other boys agreed.

"I think I'd be much more offended if he didn't keep falling back on the same dumb joke," Sirius grumbled.

"What?" the three adults without the book said, trying to cut James off, but he wouldn't hear it and kept going loudly to why Hermione would be screaming Harry's name at a time like this.

"That's not accidental," Remus breathed as he caught on.

"That one wasn't even funny," Sirius said in disgust, still too keyed up to get back to what Harry was doing to get to mad.

"Yes," all four boys cried with high spirits.

"That git had it coming to him," Sirius crowed.

Lily was smiling to herself, not able to find any bad feelings about Ron finally tackling Malfoy. The boy really had been asking for it.

"Loving this kid more and more," Remus said with an even wider smile Neville joined into the fray.

"Did he really take on both of them?" Harry asked, remembering vividly the size of those two boys.

"And holding his own it seems," James responded easily, yet his attention still more on Harry, and how well he played his position.

"Amazing," Remus yelped.

"How long did that match actually last?" Sirius demanded, feeling giddy as a child.

"Record short," Harry beamed, feeling pride blazing in him. This, he thought, was a real accomplishment. Nobody could just say he was a famous name now, he had done something to be really proud of.

Lily and James suddenly squashed their son in a hug between them, causing peals of laughter from in between their arms.

Only after they had all settled down did James finally manage to go on.

"I think the official time was three and a half minutes," Harry said brightly.

Remus let out a low, throaty whistle before saying, "I'm pretty sure the record before that was fifteen. Way to go kiddo."

"Ron and Neville are a little busy dishing out their own justice," James grinned.

"I'm sure he did," Sirius snarled, happier than anything that this overgrown brat hadn't been able to pick on this team for too long, but most of all unable to hurt his pup.

"Now that's an accomplishment I'll never forget," James agreed, forcefully ignoring the sting those words left in himself. He'd never take to the reminder of why his name was famous.

"I hope we get to hear how bad Malfoy got it," Remus said quietly to Sirius, who grinned vindictively.

"Hooded?" James murmured, that was never a good thing.

"Are you sure you're not just jumping to conclusions?" Lily said fretfully, picking at the hem of her shirt. Even she couldn't deny how suspicious this was.

Harry shook his head slowly, the happy feeling gone at once as it was once again replaced with the pounding pain of forgotten memories.

James sucked in a deep breath, couldn't he have savored this victory at least until the end of this chapter, but decided to just read on.

"Can't blame you there," Remus agreed, anyone would have followed that odd sight.

"Odd place for a teachers meeting," Sirius muttered, shifting his weight about in agitation.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Remus yelped, "Quirrell's in on it!"

"So could he have been the one who let the troll in, as a distraction so Snape could get the Stone?" Sirius asked, unable to decide how he felt about this, "I mean he seems like an incapable moron, so-"

"Stop," Lily said forcefully before they could go on speculating, "I want to hear this."

"Well we were right about the Stone," James said lowly.

"How did Snape know you knew?" Sirius demanded.

Remus was shifting his weight around, maybe they were wrong, maybe Snape had learned Legilimency.

James wasn't giving them much time to think about it.

"Why would either of them need to know?" Lily yelped, going pale as a sheet.

"Obvious ain't it," Sirius said, eyes narrowing in disgust, "they're in it together or something."

"Oh, that's just so obvious is it!" Lily yelled, looking ready to breathe fire.

"Okay you two," James snapped, "let me keep going or we'll be arguing for the rest of the year!"

Both of them huffed, and looked away from each other in annoyance.

Lily blinked several times, releasing a breath slowly. Oh how she dearly wanted to think Snape was saying Quirrell wasn't being loyal to Dumbledore, or something along that line.

If Sev was implying that Quirrill's loyalties should lay with him, that Sirius was right and these two were really in on trying to steal the Stone... she viciously forced her thoughts to stop right there, and allowed James to keep going.

"What do you make of that then?" Remus said, a rather ugly look on his face. Despite his earlier opinion, he was now thoroughly behind Harry and the others in thinking Snape was trying to steal the Stone, and dumping Harry Potter out of the way was a nice little distraction for Dumbledore. He never thought he'd say it, or even think it, but it seemed Dumbledore had been wrong with this person.

"Exactly what you do Remus," Sirius muttered back, "that Harry needs to stay the bloody hell away from that backstabber."

While James looked ready to defend his two friends, the other two looked torn, confused, and hurt. Lily just couldn't make herself believe it, not until Severus was walking out of the castle with the Stone in his hand.

Harry felt just as conflicted on the inside, but it was a battle of gut and mind. His eleven year old memories had him totally convinced that Snape was up to no good, and that they had to put a stop to this. While his gut was telling him he was being an idiot, and to get all the facts straight.

Taking a deep rattling breath, James knew very well he couldn't post on either side. He had promised Lily he wouldn't press judgment, no matter how compelling the evidence. He also knew he would back up his friends till death, because he felt they were right.

With no winning side to an awful argument, James simply kept going on. Shaking his head in slight amusement, James was more than happy to hear about these Gryffindor victories.

"Neville really is the kind you should draw into this group you've got," Sirius laughed, thinking briefly that if Harry did, they would sort of have their own set of Marauders going.

"Agreed, couldn't be prouder of the boy," Remus chuckled.

Harry was smiling around at them all, feeling a bit more at peace now that his innards weren't at war anymore, and said, "I think we just know Neville as a friend, but I don't think I ever get as close to him as I am with Ron and Hermione."

James was still happy to hear that, so read on eagerly.

"Agreed," all four adults said, already having come to the conclusion that there was more than that dog guarding the Stone.

Sirius snorted and said, "Now Snape actually needing Quirrell's help with a Dark Arts spell I don't buy."

"Then besides Fluffy, who honestly I've no idea how to get past," Remus asked, "what on earth is Snape and Quirrell trying to figure out?"

"Who knows," Lily sighed, "hocus pocus could mean anything, relating to any magic." Then she sat back with her lips pursed, the only thing she could think to add was that Sirius had just delivered a real compliment to Severus, but she didn't think he would appreciate her pointing that out.

All four adults sighed in discontent, why on earth wasn't this book getting any easier to read?

When James made to pass the book to Sirius, Remus pointed out, "Eh hem. I do believe it's my turn, since Harry skipped me."

Harry blinked, then blushed saying, "Oh crap, I'm sorry. I just had a good feeling about Christmas coming up, and-"

Remus laughed at the way Harry seemed to think he was actually mad, before reaching forward and saying, "I think I might forgive you. Just this once though."

After taking the book and going to the right page, he glanced up to see James whispering into Harry's ear, "and every other time. Don't worry about it."

Harry's smile was all the confidence he needed to keep going.


	15. NORBERT THE NORWEGIAN RIDGEBACK

Remus began his chapter, feeling a mite concerned about what he was fixing to read. So far, ever since Harry's first week at Hogwarts, they really hadn't been able to go one chapter without Harry nearly dying, or all wanting to burst into tears at the emotional reminder that they weren't there for him.

At this point Remus would have gladly taken Harry getting a detention, at least to keep him out of trouble for a while.

"Don't suppose any of the other teachers noticed how stressed Quirrell was?" Lily asked.

Harry simply shrugged, he had no idea about that.

"Pressing your ear is better than poking your head in I suppose," Sirius muttered.

"Not really," James wanted to laugh, but forced himself to say in normal tones, "Snape's just always prowling like that."

"Well, props for doing Ron telling others off for Quirrell," Remus said, "but personally I think Quirrell's in on it for a cut. I don't see even Snape bullying a full grown wizard into forcing him to do anything."

All three of the adults agreed with him on that, while Harry was frowning to himself and thinking in annoyance that he regretted doing these things all together.

"You mean Hermione hasn't memorized every textbook in the castle?" Sirius demanded, faking real surprise.

"She's just nervous," Remus rebuked, "I got pretty testy around exam time to."

"Okay, I wasn't that bad," Remus acknowledged. "Two weeks, tops, not ten."

"Yes well you aren't six hundred something years old," James rolled his eyes at Hermione.

Now all five of them were laughing at this odd habit of themselves repeating these kids.

"When do you ever stop studying?" Lily demanded, really she was happy Hermione had friends to pull her out of books from time to time.

"Your friends have," James replied to Hermione's rhetorical question, "and it's worth it."

"The Easter Holidays never are as good s the Christmas ones," all four graduates sighed in annoyance.

"It only gets worse as the years go on," Sirius groaned.

"Honestly, they gave you that two weeks off just so you have the time to do it," James agreed.

"And that's why it sucks spending any extra time in the library," Sirius agreed with Harry.

"Perfect Quidditch conditions," James and Sirius groaned at such a description.

"Now that is a surprise," Lily agreed, Hagrid wasn't known for coming into the castle outside of meals, let alone up there.

"He's still subtle as ever I see," Remus chuckled.

"Nah, they found out about Flamel, through the use of chocolate!" James cried with glee.

"I want to use that as a slogan, and buy the company," Sirius laughed.

"Hagrid's got a point," Remus agreed, fighting the impulse to laugh, "you were worried about anyone finding you out in the Library before, now you're the ones shouting about it."

"Well thank you Hagrid, for literally inviting them over to ask you questions you'll most likely answer before they ask them," Lily said, rolling her eyes fondly at the giant.

"I doubt Hagrid knows what else is protecting the Stone," Remus said, "he really wouldn't even have that much to do with it."

"Then what was he doing?" Sirius asked.

Remus glanced down, and realizing they were fixing to find out, just kept reading.

"Oh, well that makes sense," James said, "in his free time he'd look up stuff about his favorite magical creature."

"He was still acting pretty shifty about it," Lily disagreed.

"What?" Sirius asked, raising a disbelieving brow at her. "You think he's got a dragon stashed away in his wooden house?"

Harry startled a bit, his mind bursting to show him something in response to that, but he really couldn't see that happening, so he forced himself to let it go.

Lily had to admit this was ridiculous, but none of them could think of another reason.

"Now look what studying has done for you," Remus said with glee for Ron knowing facts about dragons being outlawed.

"Course there are dragons in Britain," Sirius said, shivering, "and they're as bloody awful as you imagine."

"Are you saying you've run into a wild dragon?" Lily demanded.

Sirius got a very shifty look about him, but when the silence dragged on, Remus decided to spare his friend and keep reading. He knew either Harry or Lily were going to demand the full story to that later.

Sirius shuddered for real this time, and Lily dearly wanted to know which dragon had made him do it from Ron's list.

"If Hagrid acts any more suspicious I'm actually going to start getting worried," James said, looking a little green.

"Blunt as a dull axe," Sirius laughed, coming back to the present for Harry's question to the gamekeeper regarding Fluffy and the Stone.

"Thought so," Remus said with a sigh, none of them were surprised Hagrid didn't know more, it wasn't his place.

"Hum," James mocked Hagrid's confusion, and Dumbledores. Really, whoever's idea this was. Rubbing his jaw, he declared, "tell a school full of children not to go into a certain room, and then be bloody surprised when students know what's in that room that can be unlocked with a simple first year charm. Yep, that's a real mystery."

Even Lily had to agree with that logic, or lack thereof in this case.

"Flattery is a sin even Merlin forgives," Sirius laughed, knowing this tactic all too well. For Hermione to be using it was certainly giving him a grin though, he still couldn't shake off the goody-goody kid doing all this.

"Laying it on a bit thick?" James laughed.

"Oh, but I bet it will work," Remus said.

"So all the teachers there did something," Lily mused when it did indeed work and Hagrid spilled what he did know.

"I'm surprised they let Quirrell," James said, "considering he had only started that year."

"Most likely they all did something relating to their subjects," Sirius said slowly, not disagreeing, but staying on track anyways.

"So what, if you have a well-rounded education, it might not even be too difficult to get down there," Remus concluded.

"Now hang on," James disagreed, "I would fear for my life if I wound up on the bad end of half those teachers wands. Plus, Dumbledore himself did something to keep that Stone guarded. It can't be as easy as all that."

"But Snape has been there how long?" Sirius argued. "The other teachers would have trusted him enough that if he asked, they may have just told him what they did."

"Oh not this again," Lily moaned.

"Got a better argument?" Sirius snapped.

"Yes," Lily snapped right back, "I wouldn't be surprised if all of the teachers knew what all of the enchantments are. So the only problem they seem to have is Fluffy. That's a mutual problem between both," her breath hitched for a moment before she continued, "suspects. I say Severus is checking Quirrell to make sure he doesn't know how to get past Fluffy on Dumbledore's orders. Maybe Quirrell did something suspicious that he doesn't like or..." she trailed off, running out of steam at all the circumstantial facts that kept floating around.

Really, neither one had a fair point, since both teachers had been in both places every instance.

Remus cleared his throat after a nasty silence seemed likely to continue, and said, "How about I just keep going? I'm sure we'll figure this out soon."

Harry was privately thinking 'sooner than you might think.'

"Or it just gave him a better chance to go after it," Sirius huffed. He couldn't believe Lily and Hagrid were still defending Snape after all he'd done to Harry.

"There's a way to get past Fluffy without being torn in three?" Remus demanded.

"Kind of hoping not," James said, "that way that thing will stay down there forever, and this whole problem can just go away."

"I'm starting to feel a little bad for Fluffy though," Lily said sadly, having just thought, "the poor thing's locked up in a room that barely fits him, if it is a him. How is he going to the bathroom, or just to stretch his legs, and who's feeding him enough-"

"Lily," James said in exasperation, "I have full confidence Dumbledore and Hagrid are making sure that thing is being taken care of somehow."

Remus still smiled for her concern, he'd been thinking the same thing and come to a few conclusions of how this was being done. For now he kept going, but was both surprised and horrified Hagrid seemed to be keeping a beast much closer to his cabin than Fluffy, something in his fireplace.

"You're joking," Sirius groaned, he can't have. He really can't have...an egg!

"You're joking," the other three said in disbelief.

"No, I'm not," Remus said, looking at the book like it had just bitten his hand off.

"Who, how, why-" Lily spluttered.

"I'm done," James said, flopping back against the couch in exasperation. "I really am just done with this. Harry's first year, and he's come into contact with a bloody three headed dog, a troll, and now Hagrid's keeping a dragon egg around! That's not even the worst-" His voice trailed off as he still continued grumbling.

All five of them were simply stunned into silence for a moment before Remus gathered himself up and began again.

"I wonder why anyone would want to be rid of it," Sirius gasped, looking like he was about to faint at any moment, "couldn't be because it's illegal to walk around with a dragon egg, and play a game of cards for it!"

"Of all the stupid, irresponsible," Lily grumbled.

James still looked like he had passed out against the back of the couch.

"Because having a rare breed such as a Norwegian Ridgeback makes this all so much better," Remus groaned.

"His wooden house is the least of my concerns," Lily yelped. "How fast do dragons grow? How long before we've got a fully grown dragon stampeding on the grounds?"

Sirius jumped like someone had just branded his side, and Remus didn't have the heart to tell them that dragon's grew at a considerable rate. It would be born poisonous, be able to breath fire after the first month, and then grow approximately a foot a week, reaching full growth in less than three years. Though dangerous enough to a normal person at about six months. With any luck the egg would hatch, Hagrid would recognize he'd made a horrible mistake, and someone would get rid of that thing before the week was up.

Hagrid humming to his new little bundle as he stoked the fire shocked James out of his stupor, he jolted into an upright position and cried, "oh yes, humming to the egg will make it feel better."

All five of them felt like a twitching mess. A dragon! How could it be possible that Harry would have to deal with a dragon on top of everything else this year!

"Hagrid would be fired for sure," Sirius said slowly. Despite his disgust at the beasts, he really didn't want Hagrid to get fired, he liked him too much for that. Still, he couldn't blame Harry for bringing this up to Hagrid, and hoped it would make the man see sense.

"A hearing in front of the Department for Control of Dangerous Creatures," Lily added on.

"Maybe a pretty large fine could be the worst," James said without any real hope.

Remus read Ron's statement about wishful wanting a peaceful life with far to much understanding.

"I might think that was funny if he wasn't serious," Harry said.

"No I'm Sirius," Sirius blurted out before anyone could stop him this time.

Remus smacked Sirius in the shine with the book for that, while both of Harry's parents turned to him with pleading eyes and James said, "Harry, I'm begging you, think before you speak."

Harry couldn't take them, well, serious right then. He was too busy laughing.

Remus was almost sad to drag attention back then, the note from Hagrid saying it was hatching helped no ones mood.

"Don't," Sirius said at once, he had been rubbing his knee and giving Remus the stank eye until he heard that, "don't go Harry. Please."

Harry gave him an odd look, but no one had the heart to point out to him this time how pointless that please was.

"Now that I will give them," James nodded for Harry wanting just the novelty of seeing this happen. "It might be cool for the first five minutes."

"Until the bloody thing starts breathing fire at you," Sirius hissed in disgust.

"Well that was a bit rude," Lily said to Harry, "Hermione was only trying to warn you, no need to just shush her for her opinion."

Harry shook his head, saying, "No, I think there was someone listening to us," he muttered, just as Remus kept reading and confirming Harry was right.

"Oh," all five of them winced at this. While they all disapproved of what Hagrid was doing, the last person they wanted to find out was Malfoy.

Remus couldn't help it either, he was rather curious to hear first-hand what a dragon hatching would be like.

Sirius was edging away from the book with an annoyed look on his face.

"Here I thought all babies were cute," James chuckled at the description.

Harry couldn't help a slight frown though the longer this dragged on. From the moment he'd heard about the little dragon egg, he'd had some odd feeling he would meet this dragon, but it was coupled with a terrible adrenaline rush. Why would a baby cause that though? Was it possible he was thinking about another dragon? How many of these things did he run into though? It was a very vague feeling, he decided it must not be related to this one at least, so he pushed it aside for now.

Sirius shivered in disgust this time, more than happy he wasn't there for this, and wanting to drag Harry away from it as well.

"Oh great," Lily groaned, any fascination she had gone in an instant. "How soon can dragon's start breathing fire?"

When they all looked to Remus, he shrugged and said, "Why do you lot assume I know everything about every magical creature?"

"Are you saying you don't know the answer?" James asked in disbelief.

"A month," he admitted, grinning widely, "I was just curious why you thought I knew that."

"We knew you knew that, because you're a know it all," Sirius grumbled.

"Nothing about what Harry just described sounded beautiful," James laughed at Hagrid.

"Sweet nature then," Lily muttered, shaking her own hand as if having avoided the bite herself.

"Oh he didn't," Harry said in disgust.

"What?" The others asked him.

Harry just waved Remus on, hoping dearly this time he was wrong about seeing someone in the window.

"Oh bloody hell," James groaned, running his hand through his hair in frustration.

"If that's not Malfoy then I'm a fish," Sirius agreed, wishing Ron had done more then give him a black eye now.

"Nosy git," Remus and Lily muttered.

"You mean he didn't tell?" James asked in surprise when the next day rolled around.

"I don't know why not," Sirius said, "Hagrid could hardly hide the bloody beast. No matter who he went to, probably Snape, would have gone down there to at least investigate."

Remus just shrugged, he had no idea what his motives were, and so read on.

"Now that's most likely true," Lily said sadly. It was just a baby, it would very likely die out there if left all alone.

"I think I could live with myself," Sirius muttered.

"This is just getting better as time goes on," Remus huffed at Hagrid now shirking his own game-keeping duties to tend this thing.

"I'm rather inclined to agree with Ron," James said, "Hagrid has lost his mind!"

"I'm sure Dumbledore would come up with a fair solution," Remus said at once, "and it really would be better for Hagrid if he went to him and explained, rather than a student telling."

"I can only hope Harry convinced him to do this," Lily said.

All four adults puzzled at Harry's mention of a brother of Ron's, before Remus said slowly, "no, I don't see how that would work. If his brother's all the way in Romania, but I suppose he might be able to get away with coming round to Hogwarts. The only real problem would be taking the dragon back with him, hum..." he trailed off.

Lily was shaking her head furiously, saying, "Ron could get his brother into real trouble for that. It's illegal to transport dragons without proper paperwork, which none of them have."

"Really, just go to Dumbledore, you won't get in trouble," James insisted.

Harry simply shrugged, having no answer to this.

"I just want that thing gone, I don't care how," Sirius muttered.

All four of them snorted with laughter at Ron choosing to remind Harry of his name rather than catching onto the idea.

"Come on Ron," Remus laughed, "not only did your friend think of your brother before you, but you didn't catch that?"

"Oh sure, just send Norbert on a couple of owls, that should work out," Lily rolled her eyes.

"Thought you had Astronomy then?" Lily asked with a frown, hating to think Harry really was skipping classes for this.

"It was raining that night, and Professor Sinistra had a cold," Harry shrugged. "We were lucky and got out that night."

"Are you happy now," Lily directed at them all, "Harry and his friends are clearly using the cloak to sneak around the grounds now."

"To see a dragon," Sirius told her like he thought she was being daft, "I will never be happy to hear about that."

"You lot snuck out to go see a werewolf, what's the difference?" she demanded.

James looked at her sharply and said, "never when we didn't think we couldn't handle it."

"Well, we had Hagrid, and we were handling it alright," Harry defended.

"Never mind," Harry sighed, placing his head in his hands as all the adults felt fear at once.

"Norwegian Ridgebacks are poisonous," Remus said at once, "please tell me he went straight to the hospital wing. Pomfrey never asks too many questions."

"Well, his hand doesn't fall off," Harry said with only a little confidence.

"Okay, no more sympathy for the bloody beast," James said at once.

"I never had any," Sirius snarled.

"I'm agreeing with Ron. Hagrid's lost his marbles," Remus said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Just fine, you know I've been bitten by a dragon and all," Lily muttered snidely what she was sure Ron was thinking at a time like this.

"You think," James snorted. This Charlie was being right helpful even offering to play along without asking questions, a good brother and friend obviously, but clearly had a tendency to state the obvious.

"Really?" Remus said weakly. "That's their plan? Carry a live dragon through the school, up to a tower!"

"Why, why can't Harry have any kind of normalcy in his school life?" James groaned.

"There's the silver lining I was looking for," Sirius said brightly. This was all happening very soon, he wouldn't have to hear about any of this again! "And it's gone again," he huffed, slumping back into the cushions the second Remus had kept going to describe Ron's hand in the morning.

"Ron's okay though, right?" Lily asked in concern.

"I'm positive," Harry said at once.

"She definitely would recognize a dragon bite," Remus said slowly, "but he should go anyways."

"Agreed," James said, "she never asks questions about the injuries. Otherwise students might not come to her, try and fix it themselves, and real problems can start happening."

"You three are just so knowledgeable," Lily muttered, rolling her eyes. Then a new thought occurred to her, and she asked, "Wouldn't Pomfrey tell Ron's parents though?"

"Depends on how severe the wound gets," Sirius said thoughtfully, "as far as I'm aware, they don't write home unless it's life or death."

Lily didn't really look encouraged by this, but then she remembered a few accidents she'd had during school and was more than grateful Pomfrey hadn't informed her parents about it, so she couldn't say much.

"Yet another reason to love the bloody thing," Sirius grumbled. He'd already known it was poisonous thanks to Remus, but seeing Harry's face at the news somehow made it worse.

"She doesn't," all four of them agreed. Pomfrey would never fall for a dragon bite passing as a dog bite, but it only proved their point.

"No," James shook his head, "I'm positive Malfoy have done this anyways without your brawl during the match."

"Not exactly comforting," Harry sighed.

The mood still managed to go utterly ary with further news that Malfoy had staged his visit by borrowing a book from Ron, and then leaving with the one that carried Charlie's note.

"Oh bloody hell!" Lily cried in exasperation.

"I, yeah I can't think of a single thing to say to that," Remus muttered.

"Of all the books," James groaned, rubbing his face.

"Please tell me this doesn't stop you though," Sirius turned to Harry, "you've still got the cloak. So long as you're careful, and you time it right, you should still be able to get rid of it."

Harry pondered this for a moment before saying slowly, "err, yeah, I feel like we do still get rid of it," which brought a gleaming smile to Sirius' face, so Harry left out the part where he also felt like perhaps they didn't fully get away with it.

"Poor dear," Lily muttered. Fang didn't deserve to be attacked by that dragon anymore than Ron.

"I beg to differ," James huffed. Hagrid clearly could handle this, but it didn't mean he should be.

"I don't think the baby biting him would do much to him though," Lily murmured.

"There's a fight you don't think about every day," James mused, "Giant vs Dragon."

"Don't." Sirius said at once, "just don't."

Remus didn't even try to hide the laughter echoing his voice as he read on.

"Baby demon," Sirius muttered. A tail that shook walls was proof enough of that.

"Yeah, no offense to Hagrid, I don't feel sorry at all," James said, just happy this particular crisis was being dealt with right away.

"At least he thought ahead and put him in a crate," Lily smiled, "I had just pictured trying to put a muzzle on it or something."

"Could he really not whip up a sleeping drought for it," James sighed.

"Not without knowing all kinds of things about the dragon, its weight for example. Otherwise they could accidentally kill it," Lily disagreed.

"Let's just be happy with the box for now," Remus cut in.

Hagrid trying to take the precaution of giving him a bear encase he got lonely was met with disdain, mostly by Sirius. "Or gets bored and wants to tear something up," Sirius rolled his eyes. "Well that happened quicker than I thought," he laughed at being proven right the very next line.

"Good, then don't ever forget him from far, far away," James said slowly.

"And do us all a favor and don't ever try to replace him," Lily agreed.

"She was almost as heavy as Fang by then," Harry sighed, flexing his fingers and remembering carrying the beast up all those stairs.

"She?" James asked.

Harry blinked, frowning to himself, having no idea where that came from, and corrected, "uh, yeah I meant he."

It did help that the next thing to be mentioned was Malfoy being caught by McGonagall.

"You know what," Sirius said brightly, "I think I'll forgive this whole bloody incident, so long as Ron's hand is okay, just for that one beautiful moment."

"Hear, hear," the other four agreed, looking like they wanted to start dancing with joy as such a kid got the payback he deserved for butting into other's business.

"The ironic thing is," Remus laughed, "Malfoy's telling the truth."

"He was still trying to do the right thing though," Lily said, instantly feeling bad for her initial glee.

"For the wrong reasons," James disagreed.

"A well-deserved feeling," James laughed, picturing it in his head of a little bushy haired girl normally with her nose pressed to a book actually bouncing around and singing a joy like a proper child should be.

"I really want to know what Charlie told these friends of his," Lily said mildly. "They must be some really good fellas to have somehow been convinced to meet a couple of kids on top of a tower and transport an illegal dragon around."

"I don't care in the slightest, since it clearly worked," Sirius snickered.

"Thank you," they all breathed.

"And let you never again have to go near a bloody dragon," Sirius vowed.

Harry couldn't decide right then, tell them all that he felt very sure he would indeed run into a dragon again, or ask Sirius what his problems with dragon's were. The others had already agreed with Sirius though, and Remus was reading on happily.

"So?" James asked, it's not like Filch could see them.

Remus was reading with dread in his voice now, he didn't like what the book was implying.

"I hate the way he talks to that bloody cat," Sirius muttered.

"You did what?" all four adults asked in disbelief.

* * *

My favorite chapter of this book, because awww, baby dragon! Yes, I am Hagrid.


	16. THE FORBIDDEN FOREST

Harry was rubbing his ear, and looking more chagrined then they had yet seen him. "Err, yeah, we may have been really excited and ah, left it up there..." he said, trailing off when it looked like the three boys were going to faint. "So err, Sirius, want to tell me what your problem with dragons are?" he asked, trying to deflect the subject off of him.

Shaking his head like he was trying to get water out of his ears he said, "I'll tell you that if you tell me you got the cloak back."

"Of course I did," he said at once, then frowned, rubbing his temple again in agitation.

Sirius shrugged before saying, "that's good enough for me. Alright fine, remember how I said I went down into the lower vaults at Gringotts with my cousin Bellatrix."

When he paused and eyed both Harry and Lily, they both nodded, Lily saying, "yes, but you said you stayed in the carts."

"I lied," Sirius shrugged, "I felt like an idiot, so I didn't mention it, but the truth is I got left down there for a few hours before the Lestrange's came back for me. That bloody dragon hated me being there as much as I hated it, and-" he shuddered again in disgust as he cut off.

"How old were you?" Harry demanded, feeling sorrier for his sort of Uncle then he ever had for himself.

"Thirteen," he admitted, "my parents were off with my brother getting his Hogwarts stuff, but they wouldn't give me the key to the vault, so they got my other family to go down there with me. I don't know what they were thinking-"

"Probably that you would steal all of the gold in their vault and make a run for it," James offered.

"Very likely," Sirius agreed before going on, "but I meant I don't know what they were thinking leaving me with them. The Lestrange's are known supporters of Voldemort, and they knew I hated them. I always swore they left me down there on purpose, probably paid off that bloody Goblin to." He trailed off into evil mutterings.

James and Remus had heard this story already, Sirius had been a little off at the beginning of their third year and they had eventually wheedled this out of him.

Deciding he wanted to stop the sad eyed looks he was getting from everyone Sirius snapped, "Oh, give the book here Moony. I want to know how much trouble Harry's going to get in." He snatched the book away and began reading Harry trying to make up a wild excuse to explain this mess.

"Which is why you always have a cover story before going out," James said in what he clearly thought was a wise voice.

"There is no way out of trouble," Lily agreed.

"And if you do, I really will think something's wrong with McGonagall," Remus added.

"Still not enough to get expelled though," Sirius said quickly when he saw Harry was getting a little pale again.

"I don't know," Lily said, a bit fearfully all of a sudden. "If Filch or McGonagall really do know about the dragon, you know believed Malfoy, they could get into far worse trouble than detention. What they did was actually illegal."

"Lily, you're freaking him out," James snapped, as Harry continued to grow paler.

Lily winced and said sorry, which Harry accepted, though he still looked like he was going to be sick.

Remus finally said, "I really don't think so. Norbert's gone, and all they can prove is Harry was up on the astronomy tower. The cloak is a bit suspicious, but that's all they can prove. McGonagall's always been like that, punishing for what she knows you've done, instead of what she thinks."

"All I'm hoping is that no one brings up Hagrid," Sirius said, "he's the worst liar there is," and then read on quickly.

"Now that's surprising," Lily said, "Neville seemed like a good kid. What reason could he have for being out?"

Sirius read on loudly over Lily.

"Aw," all four of them said upon learning why Neville was there.

"Are you sure you don't become better friends with Neville?" James demanded, "because he seems to crop up as often as your other two friends."

Harry was smiling back at this memory, but had no answer for his Dad.

"I would tread lightly on what you say next," Sirius said wisely.

"Wow," James said in surprise, "I've never tried that tactic. Sitting about in silence and letting her come up with a story herself."

"I don't think it's making things any better," Remus said sadly, boy was she off the mark on that one.

"Poor dear," Lily sighed, it didn't seem fair Neville had been dragged into all of this, and now he might even think the worst of Harry.

"I'm kind of offended McGonagall thinks Harry would think its funny Neville would get caught," Sirius huffed.

"Well to be fair," Remus said, "we didn't segregate our house from our pranks either. She's probably thinking along those lines."

"Really?" all five of them balked.

"Never caught four students out of bed in one night huh?" Remus demanded again just to make sure he'd heard that right.

"I do believe she's lost her mind," Sirius laughed.

"Perhaps she just said that so Harry wouldn't get any ideas about you," Lily offered to her husband.

"But he doesn't know anything about me," James said, ignoring the wince of pain that caused.

"Oh Harry don't," James groaned, "if you try to argue with her she'll double it!"

Sirius read out sadly.

"And here I thought this night was going so well," Remus muttered.

"Ouch," all five of them winced when it turned into a round one hundred and fifty.

"Again, I feel almost insulted she seems to have forgotten us," James wanted to laugh, but at Harry's utterly dejected look, he held himself back.

"Shouldn't be too hard to get those points back," Remus said bracingly, "between Hermione getting enough questions right, and two more Quidditch games, you'll be back in the running in no time."

"What's the record for the most house points lost in one night?" Sirius asked.

"I think a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher back in the 40's once made Ravenclaw house drop all the way to zero," James said, "the kid went out to the Forbidden Forest, got into some kind of fight with the centaurs out there, and almost started a war."

"See," Sirius laughed, "when you put it like that, what you did was minor," Harry smiled around at them all, honestly feeling much better now than he had then.

"To a couple of first years though," Lily said sadly at Harry and Neville's dread, "this would seem like a pretty big deal."

"They'll be pissed," all three pranksters said at once for the rest of their house.

"But like we said," James said quickly when it looked like Harry was about to get down again, "they'll get over it."

"That's all that got around?" Sirius asked. "A couple of first years, one on of the towers? I'd think at least some of them would have been impressed by what you'd actually done. Sneaking into the astronomy tower could have some major fodder for rumours."

Harry shrugged, saying, "we didn't exactly help spread the rumours around. I've no idea what everyone thought we'd lost those points for."

"That popularity thing will tend to go back and forth a lot at school," Remus said.

"The more popular you are, the more it switches," Sirius agreed.

"This school's as over dramatic as ever," Lily sighed.

At least Ron pointed out Fred and George were known to cause just as much trouble and people still liked them. "Exactly," all three boys said at once.

"Maybe they didn't lose all those points all at once," Sirius said shrugging.

"But as a whole by the end of the year, most likely," James said.

"Oh yeah?" Remus raised a disbelieving brow for Harry's sudden no meddling promise.

"I'll bet that lasts, oh about a week," Sirius agreed.

"Quitting the Quidditch team?! Now that is being over dramatic," James yelped in shock.

"What good would that do you?" Sirius demanded. "Then you would just be sitting around, even more miserable."

Harry frowned, thinking back to how bad he'd felt, just trying to make amends somehow.

"Glad Wood didn't accept," Remus agreed.

"This is getting ridiculous," Lily huffed, hating the way these kids were making her son feel.

"Just kids being kids," James said, not really liking this either, but he had enough familiarity with this type of thing that all three of them could brush it off.

"Even Fred and George?" Remus demanded, thinking that was just a bit hypocritical of them, since he was sure that they were right in saying they must have lost their own fair share of points for their house.

"I sometimes got the feeling they were doing it more jokingly then anything," Harry shrugged, "but yeah."

"That's ridiculous," Remus said in disbelief, "I thought Hermione want to earn those points back. Keeping her head down won't do any good."

"She was just trying to keep out of sight," Harry defended.

"Yes, but it would have been better if she'd tried to earn points back for the house, and received a few annoyed looks along the way," Sirius argued back.

Harry's silent promise not to meddle anymore was put to the test much sooner than they would have liked.

"Well this can't be good," Lily sighed, bracing herself for the worst.

"What on earth?" James asked quietly. Quirrell was always a whimpering little thing, but this didn't sound like just whining.

"When you hear someone threatening a full grown wizard you don't move closer," Remus said, going as pale as the others in sudden fear.

"That's great," James muttered, "now get the bloody hell out of there before whoever was threatening him comes out to see you."

Harry poking his nose into the very classroom was helping nothing! "Aw hell," they all whimpered, fearing the worst. Though at least it was empty.

"Are you sure?" Lily demanded.

Instead at the opposite side of the room was a second door, and Harry only didn't follow into that one because of his no meddling promise. "Yes," they all said, James adding on, "please, listen to that for just this one time."

"Great, let them duke it out, and go away," Remus said at once.

"Why do you think you have to do anything?" Lily demanded of nothing.

Hermione's advice of going to Dumbledore was met enthusiastically, all four of them saying yes at once to this.

Harry pursed his lips, declining to mention he doubted they did this.

"Dumbledore will still hear you out," Remus said, "and I know he'll try to calm you down enough you won't feel like you have to do anything."

"Thank you," they all breathed, this punishment was the best thing that could have happened to Harry as far as they were concerned.

"Ugh, he's not going to have to clean the trophy room or something is he," Sirius groaned when the detention was brought back up, that was a favorite punishment of Filches.

"Eleven o'clock?" Lily asked, "that's a bit late."

"Sometimes the teachers do it, especially if this is a Friday, to kind of ruin their weekend," James said, having this happened to him a number of times.

"You kids are actually starting to depress me," Sirius said in disbelief.

"Really?" James asked, "I thought Malfoy getting a detention as well was the best part of all this."

"Outside?" They all said in surprise.

"We never got detention outside," Sirius added on at Harry's confused look.

"Probably because eight out of ten times, you were caught outside when you shouldn't be," Lily snorted, "so they thought giving you detention out there would be more like a reward."

"He gives that speech every time," Remus laughed.

"But he's never actually been allowed to do it," Lily told Harry when he began eyeing them with worry.

"Filch is delighted every time a student's being punished," James said with an eye roll.

"Bless irony," Sirius cackled.

"Their punishment for sneaking out at night and doing a favor for Hagrid, is going out at night and doing something with Hagrid," James asked, looking like he was torn between envy and pride at this fortune.

"Still," Remus said slowly, "what on earth would they be out there doing for Hagrid?"

Sirius read on quickly now.

All five of them huffed at this, really was Filch just a jerk to everyone?

"What?" Lily yelped in shock.

"Relax Lily," James brushed her off, "the forest isn't even a punishment really."

"What on earth would they be doing in there though?" Remus asked curiously.

"Maybe helping Hagrid with some nocturnal creature," Sirius suggested, a few coming to his mind at once.

Now all four adults cracked up laughing at this, the three boys hardest of all.

Wiping a tear from his eye, Sirius told Harry, "we started that rumor about werewolves in there ourselves."

"Best to keep students out of there during certain times of the month," James added on, messaging his ribs.

Even Remus was smiling slightly, they'd had some good memories out wandering that forest through the years.

"Why Filch is encouraging them to be scared is ridiculous," Lily muttered.

"Hagrid probably feels a bit guilty, since he got them into this mess," Lily said, at least hoping that was the case.

"If only someone would eat Filch already," Sirius sighed.

"Malfoy doesn't have a choice," James snapped, he may have been angry with Hagrid for his actions regarding the dragon, but his opinion of the man hadn't lessened any. Hagrid was still the one who had been taking care of his son for most of this story, and they all hated hearing anyone be rude to him.

Harry's right fist clenched up automatically where the faint white scars were, but no one noticed but him. Even he wasn't sure what the mention of doing lines would cause in his mind.

Remus was chuckling, saying, "What kind of punishment is that? There's no lasting memory there."

"How I wish he would get himself expelled," Harry sighed.

"Really now?" they all said in surprise in finding their reason for this.

"What on earth in that forest could catch a unicorn badly enough to make it bleed?" Lily asked.

"The spiders maybe," Sirius offered, "I know there's some pretty awful ones towards the depths. A unicorn might have gotten caught in a web and, I don't know, come towards the edge looking for help."

James and Remus nodded, this made perfect sense to them.

"That's an anomaly though," James said, quirking a brow, "hardly anything in the forest is dumb enough to go back towards the spider den twice."

"You don't think it could be two unrelated instances," Remus offered.

"Now what are the odds of that," Sirius disagreed. "I don't know. Maybe there's something new in the forest since we left."

Lily looked far from pleased the longer these boys talked, and said, "and you still think it's safe for the kids to go wandering around in there?"

The three boys exchanged looks before they all nodded, James saying, "sure, so long as they stick to the path. Everything in their knows not to mess with the path, cause that's how Hagrid gets around."

Still looking unconvinced, Lily let Sirius read on, only pursing her lips up more though, hating to agree with Malfoy about this particular problem of something finding them, but unable to stop herself.

"The poor thing," they all said in real sympathy.

"Well Fang being nothing but a coward didn't make me feel better, at all," Lily said in a quavering voice.

"Now that sucks," James said, "can't they all go one way, and Malfoy his own direction?"

"If only," Remus agreed.

"What's with this sudden werewolf fascination?" Remus asked curiously.

Harry bit his lip, not wanting to admit what he'd been thinking then, but at Remus' wide, curious look Harry finally blurted, "I didn't know they were, um like you. Quirrell made them seem like this really awful thing and..." he trailed off miserably, but James gave him a nudge saying "lots of wizards say stuff like that."

Remus was smiling at Harry without any kind of anger and said gently, "I had to listen to it in class as well. Can't do anything but make the best of it."

Harry smiled over at him, happier than anything that he knew Remus now. He also forced himself to keep ignoring this odd feeling that he had some other memory of Remus, or perhaps just another werewolf and he was getting them confused? He really had no idea.

"To answer your question," Sirius said lightly, "no, a werewolf isn't fast enough to catch a unicorn."

"Know that from personal experience," James laughed, now that had been a memorable night.

"Don't scream like that Sirius," Lily snapped, rubbing over her heart, "you bloody gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry," Sirius said, without sounding very sorry at all.

"Slithering?" the boys asked, puzzled.

"Are snakes known to be in the forest?" Lily asked.

"Not really," James shook his head, "any normal animals that wander in there get killed pretty easily, or don't last long enough to be a problem."

"What are the odds a teacher's in there as well?" Harry asked hopefully.

The silence that greeted this was more than an answer, as well as all of their scared faces.

"Is it even a full moon out?" Remus asked, really laughing this time.

Harry frowned, thinking back, "um, I don't think so. The clouds were really thick that night, and I never got a proper look."

"Then just let it go pup," Sirius chuckled.

"I don't blame you," James agreed, "seeing a centaur for the first time can be a bit shocking."

"Anyone you know?" Lily asked, genuinely curious.

"We never got on a first name basis with the centaurs," Sirius said, "they never liked us creeping around them much to get acquainted."

"A bit?" They all snickered.

"Nice to see how much faith she has in the school," Harry laughed, it was much easier to be relaxed and thinking back on this night in this brightly lit living room surrounded by these people, though he couldn't quite fight back another wave of pain that was clouding him. Something really awful happened in the forest, something that he really was afraid of. Yet these three had wandered around the forest for years and nothing to bad seemed to happen to them.

"That, wasn't an answer," Lily said.

"Yeah, the very few times we did talk to them, they were annoying enough we didn't try very hard," James said, grimacing.

All five of them laughed at this small humorous exchange, so far this hadn't been nearly as stressful as they would have feared.

"Now that's beyond true," Sirius agreed, smiling to himself. Even they knew quite a few of those forests secrets and yet still had more to learn every time they went in.

"Does Hagrid know all of the centaurs?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Most of them yeah," Remus said, "he spends as much time in the forest as we did, but he takes more time to get to know the creatures in there."

"Yeah, we just kind of liked roaming around for the hell of it," Sirius laughed.

"That gag's not funny anymore," James said, rolling his eyes. This was usually the point in the conversation he and his friends walked away.

"I would have never guessed that," Sirius huffed sarcastically, thinking Hagrid should know better by now as well than to get a straight answer from a centaur.

They all tensed up at this, none of them appreciating Hagrid's confirmation of what they all had been thinking.

A cloak, that could mean a wizard, which meant whoever was at school this year trying to steal the Stone, and kill Harry it seemed, was most likely the one out there with him right now. Either that or it was still some new creature capable of hurting a unicorn, which wasn't any more kind to think about near Harry.

'Please let me just be paranoid and not right,' they hoped dearly to both options.

"Crap," James muttered at once, any number of scenarios blowing through his mind for red sparks appearing in that forest.

"I don't care about the Malfoy twat, but don't let Neville get hurt," Sirius muttered.

"They're fine, I'm sure," Remus said, unable to keep the edge out of his own voice, "one of them probably panicked or..." he trailed off, and Sirius hurried on.

"Thank Merlin," they all breathed in relief as the two boys made it back with the gamekeeper.

"Like I said," Sirius spat in disgust, "no pity what so ever for that little twat."

"Hagrid no," all four adults groaned.

"He could get hurt," Lily fretted, her panic at once going up about five more levels without Hagrid there to protect him.

"He'll just insult him the whole time," James disagreed. He still stood by what he said, that forest wasn't so dangerous so long as you knew what you were doing. The problem though, was that Harry didn't know what he was doing, since it was his first time in. Plus, with Malfoy there, he really didn't expect reliable backup if something did happen. Okay, yeah now his panic was beginning to rise again.

"Hagrid just wanting to finish the job did not make me feel better, at all," Remus huffed.

"Please tell me you found it, Hagrid fixed it up, and you went back to bed," Lily prayed. All five of them were frowning sadly at the body of a dead unicorn, it was a true loss when something so purely good and magical was killed for any reason.

Muscles were tensing up all along Sirius' jaw as he read the mysterious noise appearing again. He suddenly decided he'd take the magical creature run in's more than any dark wizard creeping around.

They were all wound tighter than ever before, and no one had the heart to interrupt Sirius with pointless speculation now.

"Crawling," James breathed, so perhaps not an actual dark wizard, though none of them had any idea what it was, so the point still stood they wanted him out of there.

"That is wrong on so many levels," Remus said in disgust.

"If anything drinks a unicorn's blood, it's cursed," James whispered to Harry, pleased to hear whatever this was seemed more interested in the creature then his son.

"Malfoy screaming just drew its attention to you," Lily moaned, nearly biting her lip to blood in worry, again.

"Why didn't you run to!" Remus practically screamed, they all looked torn between passing out or screaming at him.

"I froze up," Harry admitted, rubbing his scar and wondering why he remembered it paining him dearly.

"Wha-" James whispered.

"What kind of thing can do that?" Remus demanded, watching Harry now to make sure he was only remembering the pain and not experiencing it.

Lily had Harry's hand clutched so tightly in her own, Harry was beginning to lose feeling in it again.

"Another unicorn?" James wondered, pressing his shoulder into Harry's and resisting the urge to pull him into a hug for his own comfort. That would drag him away from Lily though, so he'd settle for squishing his son. He dearly hoped the thing will be distracted and Harry will find his legs again.

Harry was pale as the others, his hand that wasn't being pinned by this mother's massaging his scar. It wasn't hurting now, thankfully, but he did remember that fiery pain all too well.

"I take back every foul thing I said about centaurs," Sirius breathed, looking euphoric from the sudden relief he felt.

"I don't care who this centaur is, next chance I get, I'm going out to the forest to shake his hand," Remus agreed.

James and Lily were still a bit too in shock at yet another death moment their eleven year old had experienced.

That shook Lily out of her shock, saying, "Jeez, how famous is Harry for the centaurs to know him by sight?"

"As famous as Dumbledore," James said, the true scope of his son's fame being put into perspective for the first time.

"Bloody hell," Sirius looked more jealous than anything now, "you road a centaur? No one in wizard history has ever done that, with consent anyways."

"Don't tell me," Lily began, eyeing Sirius warily.

"Don't be daft Lily," Sirius said at once, "I would never do something like that."

Lily nodded, admitting she was sorry.

All four adults committed the name Firenze to memory, while Harry sighed in relief, the name of this centaur had felt really important to him for some reason, was it possible Harry would run into him again?

"That's exactly why no person's ever been on them," James said, "they think it's insulting."

"Good thing Firenze is friendlier," Lily sighed.

"Sworn by who?" Lily asked.

"I've no idea," Remus said curiously, "no one really knows anything about centaur kind. They're far too secretive, and hardly allow anyone around their land. Hagrid is probably one of the few people they've made an actual friend of."

"That's ridiculous," James snorted, "why would you only care about the future? What's the point in living if you don't enjoy the moments you're in now?"

"Well spoken," Lily agreed.

Harry frowned, rubbing his temple again. He felt bad for Firenze, he had clearly been set apart by his own kind, and he had a sinking feeling it was only going to get worse.

"I don't care why Bane's angry," Remus snorted, "but I would very much like to know what you were saved from."

Both Sirius and Remus gave a little huff of annoyance. Sure they were grateful he'd saved Harry, but that didn't give him the right to ignore their nephews very good questions.

"And you only ever will use unicorn hairs and horn shavings," Lily agreed.

"Defenseless is going a bit far," Sirius snorted, "you ever seen a unicorn charge you with one of those horns. Not pleasant."

"Well I did warn you not to go around that foal," Remus laughed, "so that was your own fault."

The book slipped out of Sirius' grip and hit the floor with a dull thunk. All four of them had gone suddenly rigid as a new thought hit them. They hadn't been thinking this at all, but it did make sense in the most dark and twisted way.

"Mum, Dad?" Harry asked in concern, "What did he say?"

James swallowed hard, meeting Harry's eyes fleetingly before whispering, "the Philosopher's Stone is being hidden at the school. It has the Elixir of Life in it, and a powerful dark wizard is trying to steal it..." his voice trailed off as he looked desperately at his son, waiting for Harry to catch on, and he saw instantly when he did.

Harry's wide green eyes went wider as he slowly whispered, "Voldemort."

For the first time in a very long time, all four adults in the room shivered at the name.

"But who-" Lily began, then her voice broke off in a choke, she looked like she was about to start screaming any second.

"It makes sense though," Sirius whispered, color beginning to return to his face, but it wasn't his normal tone, it was bright red. He continued on, still in a deadly whisper, "Who wants Voldemort to come back more than his loyal Death Eaters."

"Don't," Lily moaned, pressing her hands to her ears. It was too much. She couldn't get the thought out of her head. The first friend she'd ever had in her life. The young boy who had comforted her for years about how awful her sister was to her. The gangling teen who always sat around and listened to her, no matter how trivial. Then that last image. The last time she had spoken to her best friend, and he had insulted her in the worst way possible.

It was because she had never forgiven him he'd been drawn into that dark circle of friends. If she had just forgiven him, given him another chance...she hadn't realized she was crying until Harry wrapped his arms around her in a comforting hug.

While he and James were almost identical in height and build, she could still sense the difference. Looking up at him, she saw the sadness in his eyes mirroring hers, and the conviction when he said, "It wasn't him."

Then his face crumpled in pain, and he looked like he was about to fall off the couch.

James caught him before he could, and their temporary fear was gone in an instance at this real and sudden fear. Harry was clutching his skull as if it were about to burst in two, he was sweating and panting like he'd run a mile, and tears were leaking out of his own eyes now.

Sirius got to his feet and made towards the kitchen again, but Remus called him back saying, "He's already coming out of it."

He spoke the truth, Harry's eyes were already beginning to flutter open again, he was looking around at all of them with sorrow deep in his eyes as he whispered, "Sorry."

James helped him to sit up straight, while saying quietly, "I, it's alright. You got your mother to stop crying so that's something."

Lily swatted him good-naturedly, but then pressed her lips together into a thin line to stop herself from asking any of the questions that were burning inside of her. She knew Harry was right, that was a memory that had returned to him with such force, but then what the bloody hell was going on at that school. If it wasn't Severus Snape who was helping Voldemort to return, she suddenly gave a vindictive smile, then waltzed over and smacked Sirius Black on the back of the head.

"Ouch, what the bloody hell was that for?" He demanded, rubbing at the spot.

They had been sitting around talking to Harry, making sure he was alright and no worse for wear from that sudden outburst. Lily looked down at him with a stern look and said, "You were wrong, and you need to apologize."

Sirius opened his mouth to argue, then shut it quickly as he seemed to realize what she meant.

"I was wrong too Lily," Remus said, grinning slightly at the pair, "you going to whack me to?"

"I'm considering it," she said honestly.

The pair exchanged exasperated looks, then looked to their friend like 'help' but James just shook his head and said, "can't do nothing for you boys. I promised Lily I wouldn't do anything to him until these books were over."

"And now I want the same promise from you two," Lily added on.

They exchanged grudging looks again before both saying together, "Sorry."

Nodding happily, she walked back over and took her spot beside Harry, brushing the hair back from his face and asking in her own way if he was alright.

The boys made their way back to their own seats as well, the panic they had felt at the flooding realization Voldemort may not truly be gone dimmed slightly now. Harry was fully grown in front of them right now. It felt stupid they had to keep reminding themselves of this, but it really didn't help when moments like this just kept occurring back to back.

If, and they all very much hoped they were wrong, but if Voldemort did make a comeback in Harry's time, they sincerely hoped he had better things to do then come after Harry.

Perhaps he didn't even remember Harry, who knew what happened to a mind when, well what ever happened to Voldemort to make him disappear.

Sirius scooped up the book from where he dropped it, and finally read on in calmer tones.

Sirius still shuddered slightly, privately taking back every time he'd mocked someone for shivering at Voldemort's name. He could finally see why they did, and he didn't like it.

"Hoping that means Malfoy and Fang made it back to Hagrid alright," Lily said, looking about for something more friendly to think on.

"Is he really safe though?" Remus breathed, not believing that himself until his little cub was back safe in the castle with Dumbledore at his post.

They all breathed a silent sigh of relief, even the three boys promising right then they did not want Harry going back into that forest.

None of them flinched this time when Voldemorts name was said again, finally getting over their shock for good, but all three boys were now fully aware why everyone else in the world did it. None of them planned on telling Lily this though, they didn't think she needed another 'I told you so' moment so soon after the last one.

Harry shook his head, sighing sadly at his younger self, but utterly sure that eleven year old him was wrong about Snape. If only he could remember why.

"Can the planets show that?" Remus asked, truly interested.

"I failed astronomy, don't ask me," Sirius said.

"I've heard of branches of magic claiming that planets can foretell of dangers yes, and I suppose the centaurs may be able to read even more then that," Lily said curiously, she had always loved astronomy.

"That's what Ron caught on? The name again?" James snorted, moving just a little closer to his son out of fear. An inept fear, but it was still there.

Sirius was stammering by the end of the sentence, boy he never wanted to say those words again.

"How on earth could you have said that with such a straight face?" Remus demanded.

Harry simply shrugged saying, "I was having an out of body experience. It didn't feel that real to me," and privately thinking that, at the time, no one would really miss him if that were true anyways.

"That's about the only thing keeping me in my skin right now," Lily agreed. Dumbledore would protect Harry.

Sirius' voice hitched, he didn't think he could stand any more of Harry's 'surprises' without having a heart attack.

James released a huge breath admitting, "honestly, in all the chaos, I forgot to ask you when you went back up there to get it."

Harry frowned, puzzling to himself how it had gotten there, and so were the others apparently as Remus asked, "I don't suppose it has a note again, telling you who left it?"

Sirius read out loud.

"And that's the chapter," he said, tossing the book to Harry.

"Bummer," James said.

"It must be a teacher at the school then," Remus said, rubbing his jaw, "maybe McGonagall? She's in the Order to, there could be a reason she would have your cloak I suppose. Who else would give that back to Harry?"

"McGonagall doesn't even know I own the cloak though," James argued.

"Well who else other than a teacher at that school would both recognize it as belonging to you, and give it back to Harry?" Sirius argued, thinking Remus had a good idea.

"McGonagall and Dumbledore are the only two I can think of," Lily agreed.

Sirius wanted to argue that maybe it could still be one of the three Marauders, but then that brought up the awful question all over again of where they'd been all these years? Also how they knew about the cloak at the school, and sent it back to Harry? They had nothing new to go on, so he remained silent.

James sighed, still rather frustrated at why those teachers would have it at all, but knew better then to think on it for too long. It's not like Harry knew the answer, so he instead asked if Harry was ready to read.

* * *

During my original rendition of this series, I got a comment from clh saying that the person was not pleased that Harry remembered it was Snape in this chapter, that it ruined the rest of the book:

I made Harry remember it was Snape for several reasons, the first of which so that you would see what would happen and understand it when, in the second book, Harry remembers Ginny's alive you recognize it wouldn't be the same thing as actually 'remembering.' I do know it kind of killed the mood, but if Harry didn't do it then, when he saw his Mom in such pain, then he hardly could have done it at a later time for possibly a lesser reason. Don't worry though, the suspension for the characters is still going to be there, as I'm pretty sure this won't happen again the rest of the series. There's only one other moment I can think right off the top of my head where Harry will clearly remember something, but it's nothing you guys are going to guess. As always, to each and every person, thank you for reading and reviewing, it really does help me push past some rough spots.


	17. THROUGH THE TRAPDOOR

Harry hesitated before answering him though, asking, "What's the Order? You guys have mentioned it a few times now."

"Oh," they all said, blinking in surprise. Sirius said, "it's an anti-Voldemort group."

Remus gave him a light pop on the head before going into far more detail than that.

Harry nodded along, wondering very much why he had such a sense of Deja vu' of Sirius and Remus telling him these things. He shook it off and thanked them when they had answered all of his questions, and then read on eagerly.

"Well, since we managed to take our exams every year with the fear Voldemort would come storming in, I don't think the teachers would accept that," James said lightly, trying to force a joke into a deadly awful moment.

"Those Anti-Cheating quills work far too well," Sirius laughed.

"Sirius did you-" Lily began, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Oh not me," he said at once, "but I knew this seventh year kid who had written a bunch of answer's down in invisible ink on his arm, and he got them to come back for his eyes alone during the exam right? Well the Anti-Cheating charm made it so that the ink he used was then invisible to anybody but him on his test to. So he basically turned in a blank paper and made a zero." He trailed off in bits of laughter.

"Is that what happens to all the cheaters?" Harry asked.

"No," Remus responded, his eyes twinkling with mirth, "it's a bit specialized for maximum karma on each cheating student. Thankfully, not that many students are stupid enough to try, so I can't think of many more examples."

Harry smiled and decided to keep going.

"You're not saying how you did," Lily said, wanting to hear her son's results.

Harry thought a moment and said, "I did alright on the tap dancing pineapple, but it fell off in the end, so I didn't get full marks for it. My snuff box still had whiskers on it, but I got ninety percent of it, so again I didn't get full marks, but I passed." He paused, puzzling for a moment and thinking about his other exams he said, "err, I didn't do that well in astronomy, did awful in potions, did really good on my DADA course, despite Quirrell being an awful teacher really."

"What about Herbology?" Remus prompted.

Harry nodded, saying, "that one I did pretty well in."

"Let's keep going then, since I think that was all of them," Sirius said brightly.

"Points for irony," Lily chuckled. It was just like Sev to test someone with a Forgetfulness potion.

"Your scars not bothering you now though, right?" James demanded at once, still stuck on the oddity of it paining him at all but since they still had no idea of who or why he'd rather ask this question then one he knew Harry couldn't answer.

"No," Harry said, "and I promise I'll tell you if it does."

They all relaxed at once at that.

"Did not want that mental image," Sirius groaned at Harry's descriptive nightmare.

"Your friends have have more confidence the Stone is safe I suppose," James offered, having noted several times how little confidence his son seemed to have. Another thing he blamed those Dursley's for.

"And there's that," Remus agreed, those exams were enough to make anyone study, even this lot of trouble makers.

"Oh yeah," they all said brightly, but it was so easy to forget about History of Magic class.

"I did alright on that one," Harry said, shrugging, "not that good, but better than I thought."

"That's all anyone can hope for on that test," Sirius chuckled.

Harry smiled over at him, then felt an odd wincing pain. What was it about a History of Magic exam and Sirius that would cause that? Brushing it off, he quickly hurried on, not really liking the aching feeling that was growing inside of him.

"I bet she said they were all easier than Hermione was expecting," Lily laughed.

The Werewolf Code of Conduct from 1637 is second year material," Remus rolled his eyes.

"And so is the uprising of Elfric the Eater," James laughed.

"I'm impressed you guys remember anything from that class," Sirius said, a bit dumbfounded.

The three friends smiled nostalgically at where Harry and his friends chose to say, wondering if this happened to be the same tree they always sat under. The odd's made it seem unlikely, but it would still be something if he did.

"Be careful with that giant squid," James said at once, "that thing pulled Peter in the lake once for tickling it."

"He spit him out though," Sirius said, laughing loudly at the memory.

"Now that's the right attitude," James laughed, having told Remus that more than once. There was just no sense worrying about something, especially exams they'd already done.

Lily quirked a brow at this, saying slowly, "the last time your scar hurt was at the start of term feast. What was dangerous about that?"

Their minds scattered, but they all came back to one idea. They hadn't discussed it yet, but since Harry had told them Snape definitely wasn't the culprit, then the only other person who might be was a stuttering fool who clearly couldn't stand up to anyone.

Easy pickings for Voldemort to control sure, but how? To many questions, not enough patience to wait around and speculate, Harry was already going on.

"Well, Ron's gotten better at reassuring people," Remus agreed. Hagrid wasn't telling anyone about Fluffy.

"I don't think so," Harry muttered to himself, churning everything he had learned so far over in his mind, but then deciding to let the book continue, rather than strain himself again. He really didn't want another memory blast like the last one.

"What did you figure out?" James asked.

Harry wasn't listening, he had figured it out at the same time he had in the book, and he was too panicked to explain as he read on.

All four adults sat there like they'd just been smacked in the face.

"Oh bloody hell," Sirius cried.

"How on earth did I miss that," Remus hissed in self-disgust.

"Well we were a bit preoccupied with the dragon itself," James muttered, rubbing his temple in agitation.

"Oh, I really hope Hagrid didn't..." Lily trailed off, looking worriedly at her son who was still going paler as he kept going.

"I'm confounded, really I am," all three boys were muttering something similar to this, how could they have missed a detail like that? The convenience alone of the dragon shouldn't have distracted them that much!

"And Hagrid didn't find not showing his face the least bit odd?" James demanded.

"Okay, fair point that," Lily agreed, they had all been in there at some point.

Remus muttered something to himself, yes that's what they had thought at the time, but the timing! It was just too perfect that a dragon dealer would show up when Hagrid had information like that.

Harry wasn't giving them much time for self-pity, he was reading on in too much of a rush.

"Oh no," Sirius moaned, wanting to smash his head against the wall.

"Of all the bloody," James trailed off in frustration.

"Did Hagrid not recognize the voice though?" Lily asked.

Remus snorted, saying, "oh please Miss Potion Master, you're telling me you don't know a way to disguise your voice and throw on a hood."

Lily nodded in acceptance of that.

All four adults face palmed as Hagrid once again divulged the information of how to get past Fluffy. Except this time it wasn't to a stranger in a pub, it was to Harry!

"It's official," James mumbled, "we are idiots."

"Apparently all you have to do to get information out of Hagrid is just keep him talking for more than five minutes," Sirius agreed.

"Yeah great," Remus said, a bit of anxiety coloring his tone, "now we know you can put the three headed dog to sleep by singing it a lullaby, but Harry you better wipe that look off of your face right now."

They all whipped around to look at their boy, and Harry tried to fix his features, but it was too late.

"Harry, no," Lily begged, "you didn't."

Harry was gnawing his lip to pieces as he struggled to remember, saying slowly, "something happens, I can't for the life of me remember, but something bad happens. So yeah, I'm going to say we did."

All four of them leaned back into their seats, looking on at him in stunned disbelief. An eleven year old boy went to get past that dog, and probably fifty more enchantments, after a fully grown wizard, possibly Voldemort himself. How on earth was this kid still alive?

Harry decided to keep reading now while they were all still stunned.

The boys were still too stunned to make a mention of where they knew Dumbledore's office to be, not that it would have made a difference then.

Sirius opened his mouth, his mind actually starting to turn on again, and said weakly, "if those Weasley twins are anything like I think, they would know."

"You're encouraging this!" Lily blew up at him at once.

"I'm encouraging them to go find Dumbledore's office," he snapped right back. "Jeez, keep your hair on woman."

Lily deflated and apologized at once.

This argument finally shook Remus and James out of there stupors as well. None of them were happy about what Harry said was fixing to happen, but it had already happened. So they would just try to make the best of it as they went, and try to remember to breathe in the process.

"What were you going to say?" James asked curiously.

"Go to McGonagall," Harry replied, a small smile twitching his lips as he actually did remember who was about to come down the stairs.

"Speak of the teacher," Lily said, trying to make a joke.

"Well I can't blame her for the suspicion," Remus agreed, forcing a smile onto his face, "not many students actually want to go see the Headmaster, since it normally means they're in trouble."

The three boys snorted in real amusement at Harry trying to deflect with a secret, James saying, "Harry, you really shouldn't have said that." It only lasted one more line until McGonagall told there would be no seeing Dumbledore, as he wasn't in the castle.

Harry fidgeted hard, while the four people around him cried out in a panic. Before they could really start to freak out, the sensory charm went off, and Lily made a beeline for her baby's room.

She came back down cradling her son, but then noticing how devastated the two boys on the other couch looked, decided to take pity on them and said, "one of you want to hold him while I get his bottle?"

"I'll hold him," Sirius said brightly, forcing the rising panic very far down and focusing on the task at hand.

"I'll get the bottle," Remus said, getting up and making his way into the kitchen before Lily could.

Lily sighed as she sat back down next to her son, and then asked sadly, "is this the bad thing you mentioned?"

Harry nodded, saying, "yeah, sorry I didn't remember that."

"Not your fault," James sighed, running his hand through his hair in agitation.

Remus came back in, and the two boys had a brief squabble who was going to get to feed the baby. Remus won, and Harry decided to keep reading.

"Timing," Sirius muttered snidely, none of them in any way thinking this was a coincidence Dumbledore would be in London the rest of the day, now of all times!

"True," Lily sighed, "the man does have other obligations, but now? On the day of exams, when all the teachers are the busiest? Perfect opportunity much?"

"To bad McGonagall doesn't agree," Harry said sadly.

"That'll toss her," Remus said, surprised Harry would admit something like the Stone so quickly, though it only emphasized how much of a panic he was in.

"I'll give her that," James agreed, "it would be a shock for a couple of first years to have figured that out."

"Suspicious of what?" Lily asked.

"Probably thought this was an elaborate prank," Sirius offered, this being his usual fall back excuse.

"Why?" All of the adults asked in shock. There was just no reason the man wouldn't be back until the next day!

"He can just go to the edge of the school grounds and apparte," Remus said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "he'd get there and they would wonder why he was there, then he'd rush back realizing he'd been duped."

"Or the flew network, or a portkey, or bloody anything," James added on.

Harry shrugged, saying weakly, "I've no idea."

All of them sighed in defeat, admitting there was nothing else for it.

"This is awful," Lily groaned, "I can't even blame her for not believing you, this is pretty out there, but now you're going to..." she trailed off, too horrified to even say it aloud, and none of them needed her to.

"It's not a good afternoon now that you're here," Sirius said hotly.

"Sirius," Lily snapped, "you're saying you don't believe Harry."

"Of course I believe him," he scoffed, "and I'll admit I was wrong about him wanting to steal the Stone and all that, but it doesn't mean I suddenly like Snape. He's still been an arse to Harry all year for no good reason."

Lily sighed as she looked up at the ceiling, taking that victory for what it was.

"Git," James agreed with Sirius, did he really need to go rubbing Gryffindors points in right now?

"That sounds like a horrible idea," Remus said in disbelief, "I can't imagine any of you could follow a teacher without his noticing."

"Hopefully she goes to fetch the cloak, that will make it a bit easier," Sirius offered.

"But Snape didn't do it," James sighed, "so following him is pointless."

"There's that to," Lily chuckled.

Harry was blushing slightly, it's not like he'd known that at the time, so he was just trying to cover all of his bases.

"Why?" James demanded this time. "What good would it do you two to hang around out in front of that mad dog?"

Harry hesitated a moment before answering, "we were hoping if Snape ran into us before he went into the dog, we could stall him long enough someone would arrive. Either that, or go get McGonagall again and force her to come up to see Snape doing something, you know once he'd told us to go away."

"And it's too much to hope none of that happens?" Lily asked without any real hope.

The shake of Harry's head was all the answer she needed, she had already resigned her fate to what Harry had said they were going to do earlier.

"Maybe she did believe you, and was checking on the Stone herself," Sirius asked.

Harry shrugged, pausing a moment to rub his ears at the telling off he and Ron were about to get.

"So, that didn't work," James said sadly, wincing when he saw how down trodden Harry looked.

"Cheer up pup," Sirius said bracingly when he noticed this too, "you survive at least."

Harry sighed miserably and said what he had been thinking for a while now, "It's just, looking back, I feel like an idiot. I was wrong about it being Snape, no one believed us even though something really wrong was going on, and nothing we did seemed to have made any difference. For all I know, Voldemort really does get the Stone, and him coming back is all my fault."

"That's nonsense," Remus spoke up first before any of the others could protest, "you were eleven Harry. Think about that for a moment. Yes you were wrong about who was trying to steal it, but three first years figured it out when no one else did. Through a bit of luck yeah, but still, that's more than impressive. As for if," he stressed that word out, "Voldemort did come back, it has nothing to do with it being your fault. I'd blame the bloody school and Dumbledore himself before blaming you for that."

Harry smiled at him, but still didn't look totally convinced, until Lily said, "Harry dear think about all you've done in this year alone. All those things that gave us panic attacks, you got through them on your own, with the help of your friends. You're clearly a very smart, capable boy, who's doing everything he can to do the right thing. We are all more than proud of you, no matter what comes of this."

It seemed to take a while for this to sink in, but then Harry really did begin to smile, until he was beaming around at all of them.

Baby Harry burped in Remus' arms, and the timing of that was so unexpected, they all couldn't help but laugh for a few minutes, just enjoying each other's company.

Sucking in a deep breath, Harry read on with confidence.

"Kind of want to agree with Ron, my godson is mad." Sirius rolled his eyes, when he caught sight of Harry's face he quickly added on, "in the best way possible of course."

Harry snorted in amusement before continuing.

"Hogwarts school of the Dark Arts? Now there's a horrifying thought," Remus agreed.

Then Harry managed to say something even worse, going back to living with the Dursleys full time waiting for Voldemort to come for him.

"No," James said in fear, "that is a horrifying thought."

All five of them shivered in disgust at that idea.

Then the four adults sighed, unable to argue with him after this speech, ending in the reason they were set on changing this. They wouldn't let Voldemort take them away from their son again.

"Did I mention how proud we are of you?" James asked in a conversational tone.

"It never gets old to hear it," Harry said, smiling around at them all.

"Then we'll just have to say it more often," Lily said, running a hand lovingly through his hair again.

Harry leaned into the touch, feeling relaxed and ready to take on the world, quite the opposite of how he'd been feeling then. Upset and angry at the world for leaving him in a no win situation, or at least that's how it had felt.

"The cloak should cover all three of you," Sirius said brightly as if answering Ron for Harry, "it covered all four of us, at least our first year. Starting second year, we had to crouch, and after that, it never covered more than two of us at a time."

"Good to know," Lily snorted at this random input.

"Come off it," Remus chuckled, "you didn't really think your friends would let you go alone after that little speech."

"I didn't want them to be in danger," Harry said sadly.

"Well, if they're anything like my friends, you couldn't stop them if you wanted to," James laughed.

They were all pulled out of the dark path Harry was about to jump down, once again stunned in the face of Hermione Granger.

"Has anyone ever made a perfect score?" Lily asked.

"Guess they have now," Sirius laughed.

"Going to have to agree with her on that one," Remus chuckled. Flitwick would never let a student be expelled after that kind of test grade.

"I would like to repeat that, the teachers of this school set up those enchantments. Unless she's reading past a seventh year level, then I will be truly astounded if she comes across them," Sirius said.

Harry merely shrugged, he had a good feeling that it was only because of Hermione that he had survived this night at all.

"Convenient," Lily muttered. Of all the presents Hagrid could have gifted Harry, it would be an instrument, something to put that beast to sleep.

"Not Percy, anyone but Percy," Sirius was saying to himself. He had already resigned his fate to hearing about more death threats to his little pup, he really didn't want it to be delayed by a Prefect.

"You clearly weren't any better at lying then, then you are now," Remus wanted to laugh, but he was still a bit too wound up to really. He didn't want to hear Neville got involved as well!

"Kids got a point," James said.

"Don't suppose you explain everything and he comes along?" Sirius asked.

"No," Harry said, wincing as he did vaguely remember feeling guilty for what was about to happen.

"Wow," they all said in surprise, not having seen this coming at all. Neville may have backed Ron up at that Quidditch game, but he'd never started his own fight.

"And here Ron was the one telling him not to let people call him an idiot," Lily said, finding even more irony as this went on.

"I don't think he meant them," Remus said lightly, still very glad Neville had taken those words to heart.

"This is the best Gryffindor student yet," James laughed, then looked at Harry and said, "except for you and your friends of course."

Harry snorted, but still felt feelings of guilt as he kept going.

"Ouch," all five of them winced in sympathy.

"I suppose, since you were really desperate to get around him, that was the best way to go," Remus said sadly.

"Snape did that to me once," Sirius said in regret, "bastard left me stuffed behind the broom shed for an hour before James found me."

Lily had her lips pursed, forcing herself not to say anything.

Harry still felt really guilty for doing this, but then for some odd reason he pondered why he had this feeling like Neville was going to be rewarded for it?

"Poor kid," they all said one more time before coming back to the ugly realization of where Harry and his friends were off to so fast, and suddenly wishing Neville had really stopped them.

"Always hated it when Norris just stared at us," Remus said.

"I always loved the way Peeves talked to himself," James chuckled.

"You see Lily," Remus said, bringing up an argument from much earlier, when their biggest fear in the world was Harry getting caught by Filch. "Peeves' first instinct when he doesn't know what's going on is to call Filch. He does want to keep this castle safe as anyone else."

Lily nodded, accepting this logic.

"Wow," James said with glee, "I didn't think to fake the Bloody Baron until the end of my first year to."

"Yeah, but you did a horrible impression of him, and you still got caught," Sirius laughed.

"Peter was the best at faking it," Remus added, laughing at his two friends as they made faces at each other.

"Well he clearly bought Harry's," Sirius said in surprise.

"Bloody brilliant son," James said, clapping Harry on the back, then wincing when he had to remind himself where Harry was sneaking off to.

"It's rude not to close the door behind you," Lily rolled her eyes, wishing that was the worst thing about this situation.

Harry sighed, missing his two friends more and more the longer this went on. He hoped they were alright, whenever they were.

Sirius couldn't help it, he cracked up laughing at that. "Sorry," he gasped, getting the stank eye from Lily, "I just couldn't help myself. Picturing that slime ball in a dress, playing the harp," he trailed off, giggling like a child, and even Harry, James and Remus joined in.

"Well that was easy enough," Lily said in surprise.

"Wish that was all it took to put all dogs to sleep," James said, throwing a smirk at Sirius.

Sirius put his nose in the air, ignoring that comment.

"Chivalry is flattery," Remus chuckled, though unsure if Ron meant it as a joke inviting Hermione to go first.

"Guess it would be a bad thing if I said they were lucky the dog didn't just land on the stupid door," James sighed.

"Still can't believe these two doors are so easy to get past," Remus sighed.

"Speak for yourself," Harry grumbled, finding being in the room with Fluffy not a very pleasant memory no matter what state he was in.

"And break your necks cause you're not old enough to know about cushioning charms," Lily muttered.

"You are getting far too noble for your own good," Lily sighed. If she thought it out logically, she was kind of happy Harry went first, because she knew he was safe and sound. If one of his friends had gone first, she might be afraid they would get really hurt, or worse. It still didn't have to make her happy though.

All four adults balked at this, Sirius demanding, "you couldn't have thought of sending Dumbledore an owl hours ago?"

"It was too late by then," Harry defended, though really he hadn't thought of it until that moment. At their still disbelieving looks, Harry half shouted, "You didn't think of it either."

That cooled them all down.

Remus snorted slightly, not really wanting to think 'famous last words' but the thought flitted across his mind anyways.

"Better then squish I suppose," Sirius muttered, keeping a protective eye on the Harry reading for any sign of injury he might remember.

"Soft?" Remus asked, "Why would you go past a three headed dog, down a long drop, just to land on something soft?"

All of them noticed the edge of unease going into Harry's voice as he shrugged before continuing.

"Not good, very not good," Sirius said at once, going slightly bug eyed.

"I'm agreeing with you on that," Harry said, readjusting himself, "I don't like this plant, it-" he broke off in agitation, letting out a huff of frustration before going.

All four of the graduates were going over every deadly plant they had learned while in school, and the longer this dragged on, the worse it was getting.

"Struggled?" James asked weakly.

"Devil's Snare," Lily groaned.

"That'll suffocate you unless you light it on fire!" Remus yelped.

"Still not helping," Sirius snapped at them, then he turned to Harry and said, "keep going, I want to see which one of you remembers that."

"How do you not notice it wrapping about you?" Lily winced in disgust.

Lily was genuinely shocked that Hermione knew of what Devil's Snare was, it wasn't a common plant and wouldn't normally be learned until much later in life because of just how dangerous but inconspicuous it looked. She wondered how Hermione had come across this, but couldn't work up the nerve to ask Harry if he even knew.

The boys couldn't help it, they all released a weak laugh. All of them could appreciate sarcasm in the face of danger.

"While I understand the need for urgency," Lily muttered, suddenly wishing Harry wasn't the one reading so she could clutch his hand again, "when does yelling ever help?"

Harry just gave her an exasperated look.

All Hermione could seem to remember was that this plant liked living in the dark and damp, and Harry told her to light a fire then.

"The Bluebell Fire she conjures all the time should work," Remus said swiftly, then winced when James and Sirius glared at him for that interruption.

"No wood," Sirius said, looking faint, "bloody hell I suppose we should just be grateful she didn't shrink against the wall and freeze up again."

"Lucky that girl reads more than any other human," James huffed, Merlin were they only past two obstacles? "Devil's Snare is advanced that is. Easy enough if you have its weakness around, but still a hassle."

"I only hope her freezing doesn't become a habit," Sirius said sadly.

"I hope they don't keep getting into situations where she has to freeze up," Lily snapped.

"Don't," Sirius said at once, going almost white, "don't you dare say there's a fully grown dragon hanging around down there."

Harry paused for a moment, before shaking his head slowly, no he felt like he wouldn't run into another dragon that soon, before reading about an odd rustling noise reaching Harry's ears.

Sirius shivered, remembering the clankers, this wasn't getting any better.

"Not dragons then," Remus said bracingly to Sirius.

"What are they then?" Lily asked, "jewel birds? I've never heard of anything like that."

None of them could think of what they could be, so didn't stop Harry as he read.

All four of them held their breath slightly through this, not wanting to mention how dangerous that could have been just running across the room without any idea what those things were charmed to do.

"I'm going to have grey hair by the end of your first year," James said miserably, for some reason hearing his son make it through all of these horrible problems weren't getting easier the more he heard about them.

"They couldn't have used the same spell on Fluffy's door," Lily huffed to herself. She'd have been more than happy if getting in there had been as hard as getting out of this key room.

"Charmed keys, of course," Remus said, rolling his eyes.

"And they're all going be identical, and you've got to know a seventh year charm to figure out which key goes to the lock," Lily said, not really able to hide the hope in her voice that even Hermione wouldn't know that spell.

"They weren't all the same colour?" Lily asked in disbelief.

"No," Harry said, "they were every colour you could think of, and they all had different wing colours to."

James couldn't help but give a slow clap in applause for his son noticing something like that, the other two Quidditch nuts in agreement.

Lily wanted to smack them all again.

Sirius couldn't help the snort that came when he heard Ron nearly crashing into the ceiling. He was so stressed, any small amount of humour was welcome.

"You're really taking charge of them," James said in surprise.

"I can recall more than one occasion where you gave us the game plan on the spot," Remus told him.

"What if the door locked behind you?" Lily yelped, "you should have kept that key."

Harry shrugged, for some odd reason he had no feelings whatsoever about going back through all of this. He had no idea why that was, perhaps there was another exit where the Stone was being kept?

"How come Quirrell didn't keep it," James pointed out.

"Maybe there's some charm, preventing it from leaving that room," Remus offered. "After all, they weren't traveling along the open passage either."

"Anyone want to take a guess what's next?" James offered weakly, his knee bouncing in both fear and anticipation, he couldn't help it. Despite the real danger Harry was walking towards, he and his friends had made it pretty far, farther than anyone would have given them credit for.

When no one answered him, Harry just read on.

"And guess who's the excellent chess player," Remus said in disbelief.

Lily blinked, then blinked again, before whispering, "no way."

"Something wrong Lily?" James asked her.

She pursed her lips for a moment, before shaking her head saying, "Just anxious for this to be over." Privately she was thinking about coincidences, and how she didn't believe in them...

"Glad the answer of just win the game so obvious," Sirius snorted.

"Be the chessmen?" Remus demanded, "you just said they were how big? No offense Harry, but I don't really think just because you take the places of the pieces, you get their ability to break apart the other pieces."

Harry was suddenly looking very nervous, fidgeting all over, and Sirius smacked Remus lightly for worrying the kid. Harry was feeling odd for a different reason though, he wasn't worried about himself. Ron, something to do with Ron here, he huffed and kept going.

"Did you at least try to walk past them," Lily asked with almost a hint at sarcasm, as she knew as well as anyone that wouldn't work.

"Yes," Harry shrugged, "but they blocked us. Don't know why that wouldn't be mentioned."

"They're transfigured then," James sighed, running his hand through his hair.

"The castle and bishop aren't next to each other," Lily pointed out.

"He meant on the same side of the king, not on opposite ends," Harry smirked.

"I think Ron seems to rather be enjoying this too much," Remus said a little weakly.

"Oh good," James said, brightening at Remus' earlier words, "I'm hoping that means the white pieces will just walk off as well."

"Not helping Harry," Lily muttered. She wanted them to lose, to be stuck in this chamber until a teacher came down for them, or preferably Dumbledore.

"Great," Sirius muttered, trying to stop a shaking feeling beginning in his legs, "just what I wanted to hear. They're as violent as ever in the game!"

"That's got to be the most complicated game of chess ever," James breathed, "having to go the whole game without losing three particular pieces."

All five of them shuttered at this, not liking that mental image one bit of the strongest piece eyeing Ron the whole game. It was only confirmed when Ron realized the same, and what it meant for him.

"NO!" Harry yelped so loudly, baby Harry began crying again.

Harry shuddered, then apologized, James ignored that and said quickly, "but he's alright yeah? I mean..." he trailed off, Harry looked pretty frightened, and none of them could stand it if Harry's best friend was killed like this.

"I-" Harry began weakly, looking around at all of them miserably, "I want to say yes, but I can't remember and-"

Lily leaned forward, smoothing the hair down on his head for a brief moment, then his hair sprang back up again and Lily forced a smile onto her face saying, "don't push for the memory. Just trust your gut, it's been right so far yeah?"

Harry sucked in a deep breath before he concentrated, not on his pounding head, but exactly where his mother had said. After a moment, Harry opened his eyes again, and they could all see that he had calmed down. He nodded, whispered, "yeah, he's going to be fine," and then read on quickly wanting to get past this, what he felt, was the worst part of the book so far.

Harry's voice was stuttering worse than he remembered Quirrell's voice, so hoping to distract him and calm him back down Remus asked, "one step? He didn't mean that literally? Knights can only move three paces?"

Harry was instantly distracted, his thoughts breaking away from that horrid mental image of his best friend falling to the ground without getting back up, and answered, "err, yeah when I say he stepped, I meant he stepped two forward, and once to the left. Right into the Queen's sight," he finished in a mutter.

They all exchanged upset looks, but it had worked. Harry was marginally calmer, enough that as he read his voice was intelligible.

Harry was shaking by the end of this, he could have done without that memory being restored, but it was over now, and he trusted his gut. Ron had to be fine, otherwise any permanent injuries he had would be all his fault.

"I thought Hermione was the castle," James blurted.

"Three spaces diagonally to the left," Harry corrected himself, feeling out of sorts, and not knowing why the book wouldn't have mentioned that detail.

"Did it work then?" Remus asked.

Harry shrugged, he had to believe it then as he had to now, convincing himself Ron would be fine, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to live with himself.

"Please be potions," Lily muttered, "I can deal with a potions test." She had remained quiet throughout most of this, fearing she might throw up if she thought to hard about where her son was.

"Another troll?" James said in surprise.

"That must have been Quirrell's thing," Sirius pointed out.

"Well, at least now you have practice taking that out," Remus said brightly.

Lily was frowning, puzzling over it, before saying slowly, "if that troll's been down there since the beginning of the year, and put down there by Quirrell most likely, why on earth wouldn't that troll on Halloween make anyone suspicious of him."

"Furthermore," Remus agreed, going wide eyed at what he realized Lily was saying, "none of them would have found it the least bit off he fainted at it? It's clearly what he put down there, since there's no other subject except potions, and for some reason I don't see Snape doing this."

"I think Dumbledore did know," Harry muttered, speaking without thinking, "he just didn't have any proof, so he put Snape on him to watch him, ouch!" he finished, pressing his hand to his temple.

All four of them gave him upset looks, but Harry came back quickly enough. Blinking and rubbing his temple still, he huffed, "anyways, yeah, I've no idea why he didn't get sacked, cause you guys make an excellent point."

The four of them gave each other agitated looks, but didn't stop Harry as he kept going.

"Well being unconscious already made it easier," Sirius muttered.

"Yeah, wouldn't want more troll boogies on your wand," James agreed.

"Snape's," Remus sighed, this might not be good.

"Oh," Lily said at once, "that's a really difficult potion you have to make. If you get one thing wrong, you'll be poisoned before you finish swallowing," ignoring the agitated looks the boys were giving her, and she said they freaked her out, she continued, "but it takes weeks to prep that potion correctly. How on earth..." she trailed off when she saw Harry giving her a small smile, then she blushed when she realized she'd done it again.

Almost laughing at the look on his mom's face, Harry kept going, feeling very calm all of a sudden.

"That's a completely different potion," Lily said, unable to stop herself, "but very similar to the purple flame, only one ingredient is different, so this just got even more difficult."

James snorted, he loved his wife.

"Oh I get it," Lily said brightly, "the potions are already brewed in the different bottles, and you've got to use logic to figure out which ones. Very clever."

"I'm rather insulted you're so impressed with this," Sirius told her honestly.

Lily sniffed, suddenly wishing she were in the room with Harry then so that she could have a proper look at this riddle herself. If she really wanted to, she might even be able to figure it out right now just from these clues, but she allowed Harry to go on.

Hermione's statement of some of the greatest wizards not having an ounce of logic amused Lily for just a moment. "Sirius," she coughed under her breath.

"Aw," Sirius cooed at her, "you just called me one of the greatest wizards."

Lily twisted her face in annoyance at him, while the other three boys laughed at the exchange.

"Nah," Remus said, the happy feeling gone at once as a knot began forming in this throat when he remembered what was behind that door, he pressed on anyways, "Hermione's the most logical witch at that school. You're in safe hands."

"Why wouldn't Quirrell have just drank it all?" James asked.

"It probably magically refills itself after you go through," Remus suggested.

"You're sending her back?" Sirius demanded.

"Yes," Harry said stoutly, he didn't regret this decision one bit.

"You think she'll go?" Remus asked, Harry's friends seemed very loyal to him, something they all treasured deeply.

"Oh, she left," Harry said quietly, though he read for them.

"You recognize this now?" James asked, feeling faint. Of course his eleven year old wasn't a match for anyone! "After all that?"

Harry shrugged, he really didn't have a plan when he had walked into this, and yeah he had to admit he felt rather lucky to be alive right now.

Instead of letting all of them get a comment in about how stupid he felt right now, he kept reading loudly.

They all shuddered in disgust at the idea of Voldemort being in there as well, while Harry fought off the impulse to agree Hermione wasn't too far off.

"Luck?" Lily muttered, looking faint, "I very much doubt what happened then was luck."

Harry gave her a puzzled look, wondering if his mother might have an idea what did happen that night, but he was too eager to hear about Ron being okay.

"You two are adorable," Remus said weakly.

"I almost burst into tears at that little speech," Sirius snickered, he agreed with Hermione, but it made it easier on him if he just picked on his little Harry. It was how he coped.

"I wouldn't lose faith in her now," James said, he had full confidence in the girl.

Lily nodded, she had faith in the girl to, but the description of the correct potion felt reassuring.

"Well the no Voldemort part was reassuring," Remus muttered as Harry passed him the book.


	18. THE MAN WITH TWO FACES

Remus took a deep, shaky breath, and stalling a bit said, "there's not too much of this left. Your first year should be almost over."

"I sure hope so," Lily muttered, "I can't take too many more heart attacks."

Harry just smiled at them, but warned, "I can tell you now, you're probably not going to like this chapter. I can't remember what all Quirrell says, but I know it made me angry."

"Great," Sirius rolled his eyes, "something else to look forward to."

"He's not stuttering," James asked in surprise.

Harry shook his head sadly, feeling like he should pop himself in the head and saying, "No, he was faking it, I should have remembered that."

All three boys couldn't help but snort at the description Quirrell gave Snape, how many times had they called him a bat as well?

Lily muttered something incomprehensible, she felt like an idiot for not noticing Hermione had knocked into Quirrell as well in her made rush through the stands to save Harry when the book had mentioned it.

Quirrell going on to explain Hermione's attempts to stop Snape saving Harry would be wasted.

"Bless my soul," James breathed, looking like someone had just punched him in the gut.

"You've got to be joking," Sirius demanded.

Remus was just sitting there, staring blankly down at the page.

Then Lily suddenly let out a whoop of joy, saying smugly, "You see, I told you he..." then she trailed off, looking suddenly confused as the others.

"If Snape was trying to save you, if he didn't hate you like we thought he hated James, then what was all that crap all year?" Sirius demanded.

"Oh he hates me," Harry disagreed, "but not enough to want me dead."

"That, actually made me feel better," James said, blinking spastically in surprise.

"I can hardly believe it," Remus agreed.

Sirius snorted, but even he couldn't think of anything to say just then. Severus Snape had actually tried to save Harry Potter's life? What was this world coming to?

Lily looked like she was about to start crying all over again, but they were tears of joy this time.

Shaking off the last visages of shock he had, Remus now read on quickly.

They had all listened to the revelation fully from Quirrell in stunned silence, but at this last statement about killing their Harry made any happy feelings tossed out of the room, to be replaced by protective anger.

"You throw one curse at him, and no cell in Azkaban will stop me killing you," Sirius vowed.

"That's being kind," James snorted, a manic look gleaming in his eyes, "I can think of much worse things to do to him rather than killing."

"Sign me up for that," Remus and Lily agreed.

"Dammit," Lily snarled, "he's actually competent?"

"That's beyond a normal magical level," Remus said, voice edging into panic. "Wandless magic like that, the only wizard I can think of with that kind of ability is Dumbledore."

"Or Dumbledore's opposite," James breathed.

Sirius whipped his head around and looked at James like he'd grown a second head. "What do you mean by that? Harry would have noticed if Voldemort was there."

Harry groaned suddenly, pressing a fist to his temple, but quickly shook it off, sitting back up and saying, "I think he is there, but I can't remember, he's hiding or someone," he trailed off again, losing color by the second.

"That's enough Harry," James said at once, then he turned to Remus and said, "keep reading, it should explain soon."

"Gift with trolls eh? Is it because you act like them," James grumbled.

"We're all so sorry for your loss," Remus hissed. Normally he'd be laughing in agreement, or in this case disappointment, Snape hadn't gotten a leg ripped off. Who would have thought he'd be hoping that same man showed up!

"Mirror?" They all asked in surprise.

Remus didn't bother to think on it, but kept going.

"Dumbledore put something up to," James repeated from, looking confused. "Is this what Hagrid meant?"

"I don't get it," Sirius said, "the mirror shows your deepest desire. So anyone whose deepest desire was the Stone could look into it, and what, find out where it's really hidden?"

Remus snorted, saying, "I hope so. That means that it's actually hidden somewhere else, and then Quirrell will have to go off and find it there."

"All that set up, and it was never even down there," Lily rolled her eyes, still a little irked at the whole situation.

"I'd rather you do the opposite," Lily huffed, "let him find the Stone and walk away. He might forget you're there."

"Then I'll have come all this way for nothing?" Harry said in surprise.

"We'd rather you didn't come all that way at all," Remus sighed.

"But boy are we impressed you did," James added on at Harry's rather hurt look.

"Which reminds me," Sirius said, "what did Snape mean by Hocus Pocus? Quirrell's wasn't an antidefense spell."

"I've no idea," Harry said honestly, feeling that no one had ever explained that one to him.

"I'll give him that," Remus sighed, "even Snape isn't as scary as Voldemort."

"I'm just impressed this nit called him Voldemort," Sirius said in mild shock. "Normally his followers call him the Dark Lord, that was pretty bold of him."

"Maybe he's just preening cause he thinks he's about to win," James shrugged, still not really interested in whatever this loon had to say so long as he stayed away from his son.

"Well that's as tricky as it gets," James laughed. "His deepest desire is to give it to Voldemort. So long as that's true, he'll never find its real hiding place."

"Ingenious when you think about it," Sirius agreed, "because your deepest desire would be what you actually do with the Stone. Not the actual Stone, therefore its location."

"Only Dumbledore," Remus said in happy exasperation.

"I'll take that," James said with a weak smile. After all, Snape not wanting his kid dead was far more helpful right now than what Quirrell wanted.

"No way!" All four of adults said at once.

"It's not possible," Remus added on, "Dumbledore was still at the school at the time, Voldemort could never get in."

Lily and James shivered in disgust at the very idea Harry was that close to such a lunatic.

Sirius groaned, saying, "do we really have to hear the ravings of Death Eater lunatics? I got more than enough of that at my parent's place."

"Sorry Sirius," Remus said, and he sounded like he really meant it. "I'm not skipping."

"Hope it hurt," James muttered, any kind of pain he more than deserved for what he had tried to do to his son.

"Yes, but I would have never thought anything of it," Lily sighed, "teachers come and go from Diagon Alley as much as anyone else."

"Though I do hope he explains how he broke into Gringotts," Remus scowled, "as that is supposed to be impossible."

"Don't hold your breath," Sirius muttered, "probably some Dark Magic, or maybe a bribe to one of the Goblins told him it had been removed or something."

"I feel like breaking the mirror wouldn't actually work," James said, a small smile gracing his features.

"But please, do try," Remus said happily, "that way the Stone will be lost forever."

"At the moment?" Lily asked, "I don't think you get to pick your deepest desire. It's simply what it is."

"Maybe," Remus said slowly, "well, it is called the Mirror of Desire. Perhaps you can, in a sense, simply see what you desire at will. Dumbledore was the one that said it had to be your deepest."

"Dumbledore," James said the name like he'd never heard such a thing in his life.

"Alright James?" Sirius asked.

"Dumbledore showed Harry how to use the mirror," he said, running his hand through his hair in agitation, "and the last thing he said, next time you see it you'll know how to use it." He shook his head, he didn't believe in coincidences. Not one bit. "It's almost like he knew Harry-" but then he cut himself off, looking about the room like he expected someone to tell him he was being daft.

Instead, they were looking at him like he had just made absolute sense, and they looked furious.

"Are you telling me," Lily said slowly, "that Dumbledore intended for Harry to do this?" She had been thinking this same thing a little earlier, but had hardly been able to fully form the thought, it was just too horrible to consider!

"Not possible," Remus said, though his tone wasn't very believable. After all, if the Headmaster could be fooled by an idiot like Quirrell, what else could he be up to?

"But there's too much of a coincidence," Lily said, beginning to name the tasks out loud. "Hagrid giving Harry a musical instrument for Christmas, Dumbledore surely knew Harry and Hagrid were friends, could he have suggested a gift like that? The flying key room, testing his skills as a Seeker? The chess room, where one of his good friends could test his skills? I'll give you the rest are questionable, but the others just line up to well. To be perfectly honest considering the magic those teachers are capable of, I'd almost say it was easy!"

Sirius was looking about the room like he expected someone to say 'got ya' any second. When no one did he finally said, "I'll agree with you Lily," she turned to face him, because his tone didn't really match what he said, which made sense when he continued on, "but I think you're still a little sore at him for leaving him at the Dursley's. I am too, don't get me wrong on that, but come on. The man's had nothing to do with Harry's life since he dropped him off there. What possible reason could he have for 'testing' him and his friends?"

Remus sighed, rubbing his temple, before glancing over at Harry and asking, "Got any input?"

Harry shrugged, saying blankly, "I, yeah I feel like Mum might be right, but I kind of agree with Sirius, I don't know."

The momentary shock and thrill at Harry actually referring to her as his mother, out loud like that, actually did distract her enough that she really did decide she could let this matter go for now.

Remus nodded, and by now he had come to the conclusion Harry's first instinct was usually right. Still, with nothing to do in the meantime while they all pondered this, he kept reading.

"Great, the nutter talks to himself now," Sirius said absently, all of them who weren't reading were still only half listening, still stuck on the oddity that was their old headmaster.

"What?" James yelped, coming out of it first.

"Remus, read that again," Lily said, eyes almost falling out of her head she was so wide eyed.

Remus complied, and they all sat there like stunned fish for a moment.

"How could that have happened?" Harry asked, rather concerned by this reaction.

"I've no idea," James said.

"And that's why it's so bad," Sirius agreed.

"And if none of us knows how to do that," Remus muttered, "then this clearly isn't anything good."

"My question," Lily said, ignoring how high pitched her voice is, "was who said that?"

Remus glanced back down at the page with ice cold fear, forcing himself to read.

"Did your reflection smile before when you saw us?" James asked, not really curious to know the answer, just trying to keep himself in the here and now so he didn't freak out that Harry was now in such immediate danger.

"No," Harry answered honestly, though honestly he hadn't exactly been watching his own face.

"You're joking," Sirius groaned, "please tell me that was a really awful joke in which Harry now has the thing that lunatic wants, in his pocket."

Remus didn't even glance up at him, but shook his head swiftly from side to side as an answer before blasting on.

"But how," Lily couldn't help but blurt out.

"Really, scary, over the top magic," James grumbled, only having a few vague ideas himself.

Sirius couldn't help it, he snorted in amusement, saying, "Come on, you could lie better than that."

"I was under a lot of pressure," he defended, mentally adding he had no desire to share what his real deepest desire was with that man.

"Yes, please dare to make a run for it," Remus said fervently.

"Dammit," Sirius groaned. This Dark Magic, whatever it was doing this, just kept getting worse and worse.

"How, what-" Lily spluttered.

"I don't know, and I won't if you keep asking me that," Remus snapped at her.

At Lily's hurt look, he said, "Sorry, we're all a bit on edge."

Lily nodded, accepting the apology.

"Don't want that. Absolutely the last thing I will ever want," James was muttering.

All four of them couldn't get the idea out of their head, Harry was in the same room as Voldemort! It was impossible, but...

Harry knew, instinctively somehow, he did not like what Remus was about to say next, if the reaction to feeling like screaming meant anything.

"A face?" James said faintly.

"Out of the back of..." Lily whispered.

"I'm going to be sick." Sirius groaned, and the green coloring made it seem like he wasn't kidding about that.

"He, what, merged bodies with..." Remus tried to say, trailing off in confusion or horror they didn't know.

"That's not, he's not even-" Lily stuttered.

"Explains the magic beyond Quirrell's level," Sirius muttered bitterly. He felt itchy all over, like he needed a hot bath just from hearing about this.

"It gets weirder as you go on," Harry said, rubbing his temple again in agitation. His scar wasn't hurting him now, but he seemed to know that it was about to start hurting soon.

Remus wouldn't have believed that, until his twenty year old cub fell into the kitchen yesterday. While the baby he knew and loved sat in Sirius' lap.

"There's a nightmare I'll never forget," James said in disgust, he really wanted to go wash himself in pure soap.

"I might be fascinated if that wasn't the most twisted, darkest thing I've ever heard in my life," Remus said in disgust.

"Great," Lily snapped scornfully, "so our plan should be that no one ever wears something that covers up their head, ever again."

"I am going to be sick," Sirius vowed. It had been Quirrell himself drinking unicorn blood?! Even having an answer somehow made that whole thing worse!

The second Voldemort stated he knew Harry had the Stone, "Run," they all whispered, that thought the only thing any of them could really focus on anymore.

"LIAR!" Remus and Sirius snarled, angrier than they had been yet. How dare anyone imply James would beg for anything!

Harry could feel blood pounding in his ears, this was the part he had been remembering, he hated listening to someone say anything about his parents, but he also feared that the pain would be coming soon.

When Harry shouted this was a lite to Voldemorts face, his parents beamed at him, pleased to know that if Harry knew anything about them, it was this one truth.

"I might laugh if that wasn't the most disturbing sentence I've ever heard in my life," James said faintly. A man turning on the spot backwards so the thing in the back of his head could keep an eye on Harry was definitely one of the stranger, and still most terrifying moments, of his life.

Remus' voice almost stuttered out, he really didn't want to be the one to read this. To know details of how Voldemort had torn away a part of his family, starting with James...

Then James surprised them all by puffing out his chest and saying, "I'm not surprised one bit. He'd have to kill me to get to you two."

Lily's lower lip was quivering, while she didn't appreciate that statement one bit, she wasn't about to argue it either.

"Do you want me to read?" Harry offered, when it seemed Remus might pass out.

"No," he said, bolstering his courage. If James and Lily could hear this without crying over it, he could certainly read it.

"Of course I did," she hissed, her wand appearing in her hand, looking ready to curse the world any second now to protect her family.

"And we don't blame you one bit," Lily whispered to Harry.

Harry smiled around at his parents, never having been more proud to be their son then in this moment.

"Hoping that bastards done now," Sirius muttered in disgust, hearing that had been almost as bad as hearing they were dead the first time.

"The potion would have worn off," Lily yelped in concern. It would be dangerous for him to just go back through that fire.

"Would you rather he stayed in there with them? Him? How would you even..." Sirius began hotly, but faded off into mutters at the end.

Harry couldn't help but burst out laughing at him, which calmed them all down.

Since Harry was alive and laughing, and didn't have black burns all over his body from that fire, Remus read on with only medium anxiety.

Which immediately flew up to the highest level of anxiety it could get. Harry may be fine now, but how much had Voldemort/ Quirrell hurt him before Harry gave up the Stone?

Blinking the red vision out of his eyes, Remus quickly read.

"He's dead." Sirius spat, looking quite deranged at hearing anyone put their hand on his godson. "I don't care where he is right now, he is dying."

"Not going to stop you," the others agreed, privately thinking they would all help.

Harry winced, putting his hand to his scar again, there was the pain he had been remembering.

"Why?" Lily yelped, pushing Harry's hand out of the way so she could look him in the face, "what spell was he doing to cause that to happen to you?"

"It wasn't a spell," Harry muttered, frustrated that he couldn't remember why this was happening, even though it felt really important.

"Keep going Remus," James said evenly, he wanted to get past this part already.

"Who'd have thought yelling and struggling would actually work," Sirius said to himself, pleased beyond measure it had.

"I've never heard of anything like that," Remus whispered.

"Why can't he touch me?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"Don't question it, run for it," James said quickly.

Remus pushed the thought aside for now so he could read on.

"Remus!" Harry yelped in shock as the book actually split down the spin as Remus ripped it.

He didn't look very sorry, looking at the remnants of the pages in his hand like they themselves were Quirrell's skull.

Lily waved her wand, and the book flew back into his grasp, completely repaired, then she snapped at him, "What did I tell you-"

"You told Sirius he couldn't ruin the book. You didn't say anything to me," he pointed out.

"Wohoo, loophole," Sirius cackled, slapping a high five with his friend.

All four adults were still breathing more rapidly than normal, the mental image of Harry being pinned to the ground and strangled one that would leave a scar on them for the rest of their life they were sure, but the distraction had done its job.

Harry was again laughing along at these antics, safe and sound right here with them. Sirius cuddled the baby closer to him, and both of Harry's parents leaned in to their son as Remus forced himself to go on.

"Hope you can't heal that," Lily said nastily.

Remus couldn't help but stutter over those lines, of Quirrell actually going for his wand, but one glance up at the black haired youth squished between his parents and he was able to finish.

"Who was screaming, you or him?" Sirius asked.

"Both of us?" Harry muttered, still rubbing his scar.

"You're rubbing that an awful lot," James frowned.

"I just remember the pain, really, really well. That's something I wouldn't like to have had back."

His parents smiled sadly down at him, but no one could really think of anything to say to that.

"Hopefully die from pain overdose," Sirius said in a chipper tone, then added on, "though that would kill my fun."

Remus' mouth twitched at that, but Sirius seemed so sincere, he decided not to ruin that comment by pointing out that this act was clearly hurting Harry as well. It wasn't hurting him now though, which gave him the strength to read.

"Oh I doubt that," James breathed.

"Help arrived, maybe Ron and Hermione," Lily offered, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

"Bloody hell," Sirius groaned, that wasn't a good sign, was it possible other Death Eaters had arrived?

"Jeez, if you had actually stopped there-" James began, then broke off his own sentence, not even wanting to say any of those next words.

"It's okay," Harry said into the awkward silence. "I'm alright then. Nothing else happens for the rest of this year." Except going back to the Dursley's he privately added.

"Well I should hope not," Lily yelped, "isn't five deadly situations more than enough for all seven years at school!"

Harry gave her a sheepish expression, but didn't seem like he was going to answer.

Remus didn't give him the chance.

"Are you dreaming again?" Lily asked.

Harry shook his head no, smiling now. His scar, he remembered, didn't hurt anymore. The opposite in fact, he felt quite content and happy, if a bit drowsy.

"Strange indeed," Remus said, rubbing his jaw, more grateful than anything that whole ordeal seemed to be over.

"Who wears golden glasses?" Sirius asked redundantly since he knew Remus was fixing to read.

"Oh," they all muttered in annoyance. None of them had really decided on their feelings about Dumbledore just yet, this book was certainly implying a lot of bad stuff about him.

"Right to the point then," James said, frowning slightly. He really would hate it if Quirrell had gotten the Stone after all of that hard work his son did.

When the negative of this was told, "I will admit, that's a relief," Sirius sighed.

"That she will," Remus actually chuckled, having much of a relationship with the Hospital Matron, amazed he could feel alright again after that awful last scene.

"How come you guys never gave me that much candy when I was in there?" Remus demanded, unable to hide his smile.

James snorted, saying, "Please, if we gave you candy every time you wound up there, we'd put every candy shop in the country out of business."

"You're only encouraging him," Lily reminded, "since buying that much would in fact be good for their business."

"Fine, then all of our teeth would simultaneously rot out," Sirius grinned.

"Never stopped you trying before," Remus smirked, but then he finally admitted he had let the joke drag on too long so quickly kept reading before anyone else could throw something out.

"Sounds about right," Sirius laughed.

"Really though," Lily asked, "what did the school know about that?"

Harry shrugged, answering, "I honestly have no idea. I never wanted to ask anyone."

They couldn't help it, all five of them cracked up laughing at that. It seemed a lifetime ago they were reading about Mrs. Weasley scolding her boys on the platform about a toilet seat.

"Killjoy," James sighed, though like Remus, entirely used to Madam Pomfrey's ways.

"Three days," Lily moaned.

"If it makes you feel any better," Harry said, "that's the longest I'll ever be in the hospital wing." Then he frowned and rubbed his temple, annoyed at this random habit of his gut speaking, and his brain paying for it.

Lily looked like she dearly wanted to ask why Harry had wound up in there any other time, but felt it wasn't worth it right this moment.

"One track mind eh?" Remus chuckled, honestly curious what had happened to it as well. His cub sure went through an awful lot of trouble to keep it safe, he did deserve to know.

"Okay, I'm not mad at Dumbledore any more," James sighed, he clearly had come at a time when Harry needed him, which was the most important thing to him.

"Remembered why Dumbledore was supposed to be gone so long yet?" Sirius asked.

Harry nodded brightly and said, "Oh yeah, it's because he said he flew. When he got to the ministry though, he apperated back. I don't know how he flew, he didn't say," he trailed off with a shrug, having remembered asking him this shortly before he headed to the boats at the end of the year.

"Might have used a Thestral, like Hagrid at the beginning of the year," Lily speculated.

"We never even proved that's how Hagrid did it," Remus pointed out.

"Why would he fly anyways?" Sirius demanded, "Hagrid I can understand, but Dumbledore has every means at his disposal-"*

"Sirius," James broke him off, "let it go. We're not going to find that out."

Sirius huffed, but did indeed let the matter drop.

Remus shuddered in disgust. How many times was he going to have to read Quirrell had almost taken this child away like he had his parents?

"I guessed as much, from the way Harry was passing out," James murmured to himself, the only reason he had been able to hold himself together was because of his living son at his side now.

"Then yeah, I guess I forgive him to," the other three agreed.

"Destroyed?" Sirius said blankly, "after all that, he went and blew it up."

James snorted, asking, "Why do you assume the only way to destroy something is to blow it up?"

"That's just what came out okay, I didn't mean it literally," Sirius rolled his eyes.

"The thing," Lily said at once, eyes narrowing dangerously. "I think I might reconsider my forgiveness."

"Now Lily," James began, but then she looked at him, and James quickly redirected, "keep going Remus."

"To be honest, I don't think I'd want to live that long anyways," Sirius said, "be bloody depressing outliving everyone you know by a couple hundred years."

"Nutter, I swear," James snorted. He'd had plenty of instances being in Order meetings to hear of such explanations from Dumbledore, but they never got old.

"Glad Dumbledore taught you that," James said proudly. It would drive him nuts to sensor himself not calling Voldemort by his name because Harry still feared it.

"I'm not even going to ask if he said 'yes, of course,'" Lily sighed, pressing her face into her hands in preparation for this answer.

"Well, then Lily's thing about having to show your full head should at least be applied to all future teachers," James muttered, still forcing down a shiver of disgust.

"Quirrell deserves it," Remus said without any remorse. None of them disagreed.

"You would think his followers would realize this," Sirius pointed out.

"Nah, they're too dumb to work for themselves, they need someone telling them what to do," James snickered.

"Let that be as true as it ever gets," Lily vowed, personally thinking about starting up a new Department just for this job alone if it kept Voldemort out of their lives for good.

"Again," Sirius snorted, thinking back to the mirror and how they were sure he'd technically lied about that answer even if they didn't blame him.

"Which I would do every single time forever," Lily growled, a glint of something in her eyes none of the boys had seen before this day.

"Yes," James said eagerly, he had been wanting to know this since the first chapter! Why had Voldemort done this to his family?

"Why the bloody hell not," Sirius groaned.

"Cause I was too young," Harry said sadly.

"Was?" James asked, eyeing him hopefully, "are you saying he does tell you then?"

"I," he hesitated for a moment, then accepting the pain that was coming he spoke with his gut, "yeah, I think he does." The pain flowed through him, and he brushed it off as soon as he could, allowing Remus to go on.

"I'm pretty sure we all hate to hear that right now," Lily muttered.

"Yeah," James sighed, "I hope he bleeding answers that question. Quirrell not being able to touch you certainly helped, but was still odd."

The longer Remus kept reading, the more curious his tone became. This was something he'd never heard of, and he still loved learning new things.

Lily hadn't realized she was crying until she blinked, a tear traced her cheek down her face. Then she saw that Harry was smiling at her, and she whispered, happier then she could ever remember being, "so I saved you?"

Harry nodded, unable to speak himself.

The three boys exchanged happy smiles, all thinking that if they had to die, at least they had left Harry with this small precious gift. Their love and protection over him, even if they couldn't be there in person to deliver it. Each of them had questions of how this had really worked, as surely Lily wasn't the first mother to die for her child, but they decided to wait until much later to question the actual act of that magic.

"Just out of curiosity, though I'd really like to know the answer myself, why on earth would you think he'd know who gave you the invisibility cloak?" Remus asked. "It's not like you knew then what you know now."

"He's the headmaster of the school," Harry tried to explain, "I thought he would know everything that goes on there, I don't know, I didn't even have anyone else to ask really."

"Fair enough," he agreed, albeit sadly.

"I did what?" James balked.

"So we were right," Sirius said slowly, "sometime in the next year, the Order must find out about it, and everyone starts using it. Or Dumbledore could mean him specifically, in which case," he trailed off.

"Why would he need it?" Lily asked what they were all thinking, "he's already said that he can be invisible without it?"

"Well maybe he couldn't," Remus offered, "there could be a million reasons why he couldn't have turned himself invisible, and he needed an untraceable way."

"Well, remind me never to offer it up anyways," James sniffed, privately thinking that he didn't care what the bloody Order needed it for, his family was going to need it more all too soon.

"Can't deny that," Sirius chuckled. They had used the cloak for more than sneaking into the kitchens of course, but Dumbledore didn't know about that bit.

"Ah no," Remus interrupted himself, "if Harry actually ever calls him Professor Snape, and means it mind you, I'll eat a quaffle."

All of the boys laughed, while Lily simply rolled her eyes indulgently.

"Best answer you could have given," Sirius snickered.

"Yes, and no," Lily said sadly in regards to Snape hating James, "but since you already know that complicated answer," she trailed off, eyeing Remus expectantly, who took the hint.

"What?" Harry yelped.

Remus couldn't help but burst out laughing, and without looking up read.

Harry ignored this, still eyeing his father.

The three boys exchanged rather uneasy looks, that was a rather nasty tail for all parties involved, so James said slowly, "well, you see, ah-"

Then Sirius cut in quickly, "Let's start with, it was my fault, end with the bugger didn't actually die, and we can fill in the middle bit later, yeah?"

Harry nodded grudgingly, very curious to hear this.

"Maybe Dumbledore will tell you now," Lily offered, though none of them really expected him to give Harry the full story.

"Well," James said, looking like he'd just swallowed a lemon he spat out, "okay fine. Yeah, call us even. But anything he does to you over the next six years is fair game for me to hate him again."

Lily snorted, but none of them could disagree.

"And I'm sure he did go back to detesting James' memory at once," Sirius said in a false happy voice.

"That was a bombshell out of nowhere," Harry explained to the kind of confused looks.

"I think we've kind of worked out how the mirror worked," Remus said.

"But I'd like to hear him explain it anyways," Sirius said in a stuffy tone, "so no cutting out."

Remus gave him the stank eye before reading.

James couldn't help but snort with mirth at Dumbledore's self-deprecation.

"Yeah," Remus nodded, "about what I worked out."

"Know it all," James snickered, while Remus stuck his tongue out at him.

"But Quirrell didn't technically want to use it," Lily pointed out with a ruffled brow. "So shouldn't that still count?"

"But Voldemort did," Sirius reminded with a renewed shudder of disgust at the thought, "and I think that's what made it count. If Quirrell had just been down there on his own, then maybe he would have gotten it on a technicality. It all depends on how liberal the mirror was with the spell, if Quirrell's intentions to give it to someone who would use it still nullified him."

"You scare me when you get all logical like that," Lily smirked back without argument.

"Blech," Sirius retched, the nausea he had been feeling had died down, but he didn't appreciate the reminder.

"Never assume what flavor a bean is by the color," James said wisely, "otherwise chocolate flavored can look like bark."

"My point," he laughed.

"You can say that again," Remus nodded in agreement.

"Another benefit of the cloak," Sirius snorted, "we never asked for permission to go in there."

"You never asked for permission to go anywhere," Lily reminded.

"She thinks resting will cure every disease in the world," Remus muttered.

"Poor kids, not being allowed to go in and see him," Lily sighed, then perked up at once saying, "Oh, Ron's okay. Poor thing, I've forgotten all about him."

"Well, since Harry didn't wake up and find him in the Hospital with him, I'm sure he wasn't too badly hurt," Sirius said brightly.

All four adults again exchanged superior looks, they had a feeling Hermione liked hugging Harry a little more than as a friend, but as Harry had shown no reaction to this, since he only had eleven year old memories it wasn't too surprising, they said nothing.

"Damn near screamed as well," Lily shuddered.

"Well when you put it like that, it sounds awful," Remus chuckled.

"A feeling I share," Sirius laughed. He'd long since known how crazy Dumbledore was.

"Entrance hall?" James said, frowning, "the owlery is up in the turrets, and they were on the third floor. What did they go down for?"

"Took a wrong secret passage," Harry answered, he had asked them this himself later. "Hermione was leading, and they were in so much of a panic, they decided not to risk taking any more. They wound up at the top of the stairs and there was the entrance hall..." he trailed off, then waved Remus on.

"I'll kill him," Lily vowed, "encouraging you to do that!"

"Lily," Remus said uneasily, but she looked like she was going red in the face as she snarled, "No Remus. Nothing you say will make this alright. Nothing Dumbledore says could make this alright. If he intended-"

"I'm not defending him," Remus said hotly back, "what I'm saying is give the bloody man a chance."

Lily paused, giving him an odd look, while he explained, "You made us promise not to kill Snape because of what we thought of him, well now I'm asking you to do the same. Dumbledore is the greatest wizard there is, and while I can fault him for a lot of things in this year," he waved the book around just to make sure they understood what he meant, "I'll not have you condemn him without all the facts. Six more books Lily, then you can go kill him if you want."

Lily deflated, but finally said, "Yes, alright, agreed."

James and Sirius were looking between the two wide eyed like a tennis match, but after a few more moments Remus continued.

Lily muttered something under her breath, but not loud enough for anyone to hear. She soon opened her mouth in protest again, but quickly snapped it shut. She came to the conclusion that if she started nagging on everything she thought Dumbledore did, rather than the man himself saying it, she was no better than the four boys around here this whole book. So she kept her mouth shut, and contented herself with mental scathing.

James groaned, saying, "this is why you have a reserve team."

"Maybe they still won with a quick replacement," Remus offered without any real hope. "Never mind," he sighed.

"Who did replace you anyways?" Sirius asked.

"Some seventh year who Charlie beat out of the team all those years ago," Harry shrugged, he'd never asked for details to angry at himself for missing the match.

"Bossy, bossy, bossy," Remus muttered. As good as her intentions were, the thing he hated the most about his condition was being cut off from his friends so much.

"Well you can't blame her since that time we released a horde of fire salamanders our last day there," James chuckled, no one would ever forget that ceremony.

"Aw," Lily smiled, "in all of this, I can't even be mad at Hagrid for his slip."

"Agreed," the boys all said.

"In consolation, he didn't know that at the time," Remus said bracingly, like Hagrid was really there to comfort him. "Otherwise I'm positive you wouldn't have said a word."

"I think they only send wizards off to live with Muggles who can't be rehabilitated in Azkaban," James said, frowning. "Hagrid's never done anything to deserve that."

"Rehabilitated?" Sirius snorted. "They bloody lose their souls in that place."

"Can we not talk about this," Lily groaned, she didn't want to think about that horrid place any more then possible, and Harry was looking a little funny at the mention of the place.

"True as well," Remus agreed. Voldemort wouldn't be much of a threat if he wasn't clever, and it was no leap at all to think he'd find some way to get past Fluffy without Hagrid.

"I've never tried that," James said thoughtfully, "you think if we just yell it loud enough people will get over it?"

Lily snorted and shook her head in disbelief, but since James clearly didn't mean it she didn't say anything.

'Wish you hadn't met him' they were all thinking.

"Chocolate Frog's cheers everyone up," Remus said, smiling eagerly.

They were all very curious to see what Hagrid had gotten Harry this time. Despite the disastrous consequences of his Christmas gift, he was still the one person through this entire story that had been keeping an eye out for Harry, that wasn't a student anyways. True he had made some disastrous mistakes, but who hadn't in their life?

"Oh," Lily murmured, looking about ready to burst into tears again.

"Thank Merlin," James breathed, "I'd hate for your only image of us to be some spooky old mirror."

Harry was smiling sadly, very much wishing he had that book now, having looked through it so many times he would have wanted to ask exactly when and why each picture had been taken.

Remus and Sirius exchanged very depressed looks, knowing that they probably hadn't been on that list of old school friends.

"You were in the book," Harry said slowly, looking at Sirius with a new light, then he smiled and said, "I knew it. I thought I had some memory of you, but it must have been your picture I'd seen. The wedding photo."

Sirius went bright eyed at that saying, "You saw me? That's awesome, here we were both getting depressed you'd never even know we existed."

Harry smiled and nodded, but the moment Remus kept reading, the less sure he felt. There was a picture of Sirius in his parent's scrapbook, but that wasn't the feeling he had of Sirius. It must be though, what else could it be?

"I just had Déjà vu' to your first day there," James wanted to laugh at Harry once again getting all of the stares in that Great Hall, but at Harry's annoyed look, he held himself back.

"I wish some students hadn't taken to heart the advice of emptying their heads," Lily said lightly.

James and Remus gave her annoyed looks, but Sirius actually laughed for a moment before he realized Lily had meant them, then he just scowled at her without any real heat.

"Maybe next year you won't go pulling as many stupid stunts, and you'll actually earn points," Lily said without any real hope.

James snorted, for some reason he highly doubted that. Then Lily looked at Harry's face, and she agreed it was wishful thinking.

"Recent events?" Sirius asked.

"They stop counting the last day before exams start," Remus puzzled.

James went wide eyed before he gasped, "you mean he's going to award you three with house points for what you did?"

Harry muttered, "us four," but not loud enough that Remus stopped to ask.

"I officially cannot meet your friend without laughing at him," James chuckled at such a vivid mental image as a sunburnt radish.

"That bumped you to third place," Lily sighed, this didn't seem fair to her at all. Through the whole of their first year, Harry and his friends had constantly broke the rules, and been awarded for it. The only time they had been punished, and still Harry was almost put in danger because of it. She really, really didn't like this pattern that was forming.

"So the school does know some of what happened," Sirius said in surprise at Percy's statement.

"The three of you are going to win that hundred and fifty points back," Remus surmised.

"But that would leave them twenty points short," Lily added up.

"So Dumbledore's rewarding you guys for what you did, but not so much that you beat out another house," James said approvingly.

Lily sighed, she wished they weren't rewarded for it at all. She was proud of her son for what he did yes, but if he came to the conclusion that it was alright now to go breaking rules and then expected to be awarded, they were going to have a hard six books to come.

"Never mind, they did tie," Lily rolled her eyes.

"Has there ever been a tie?" James asked.

"No, not that I can think of," Remus said, "so this might be interesting."

All four adults couldn't help themselves. Despite how wrong they felt this was, they all said, "Congratulations," and Harry's eyes light up like Christmas all over again. Mostly though, they were just proud of him, and happy that Neville had been rewarded as well for what he had done. What's done is done.

"Oh, I'm sure Snape's very pleased about all of this," Sirius laughed.

"Can't say I'm surprised Snape's opinion of you hasn't changed," James sighed.

"Disappointed though," Lily muttered.

"Knocking out mountain trolls is a good memory now?" Lily asked.

"Well when you look back, yeah, I was pretty proud of that incident," Harry shrugged.

"Has anyone ever gotten such bad marks they were thrown out?" Sirius laughed.

"You should try it sometime," Lily said sweetly.

"Why do you keep picking on me," Sirius grumbled.

"Because you know I don't mean it," she shrugged, eyes twinkling.

Sirius couldn't help it, he smiled back.

"Pointless really for the purebloods to be reminded of the no magic during the holidays," James laughed.

"Even if they forgot to give them to you, the rule would still apply," Lily giggled.

"Oh no," Remus groaned.

"What's the matter," James demanded, Remus looked like he didn't know whether to be angry or sad, and it was rather an odd, torn expression.

"I've just realized where he's heading back to," he sighed.

"Crap," Sirius hissed in disdain.

"You know what, I lied," Lily told Harry, going a shade of red in the face at remembered anger, "I'll take the mountain troll."

"Last you left, they weren't speaking to you," James groaned. "So I suppose if you just have to put up with that for three months, it won't be too bad."

Harry kept quiet, knowing full well it was better not to say anything he was thinking about the Dursley's to this lot, and just mentally preparing more calming speeches about why they shouldn't kill them yet.

Despite the sudden dread, they all couldn't help but laugh a bit at that mental image Harry painted of so many wizards bombarding the Muggle station.

"Yes," all four of them said at once, glad Harry's friend didn't wait till another year to ask him around his place.

"Hell, please let him stay all summer," James begged.

Harry blinked, having an odd feeling about bars being ripped off of windows? Something involving Ron? He had no idea.

"Wish you had told them exactly why you weren't famous at that place," Lily muttered.

"Why didn't you?" Remus demanded.

"I just made some snide comments every now and then, like that first day I met Ron," Harry shrugged. He hadn't really believed that, whatever he said, he'd be taken away from the Dursley's, so he never thought to tell anyone. What good would it do?

Lily rolled her eyes, how young was this little red headed girl again?

Harry however was smiling indulgently, like he thought that was the cutest thing in the world. Odd though, since back then he'd just felt embarrassed.

"Why do you over exaggerate every punishment you should have gotten, but can't be bothered in these moments," James laughed at Harry's summation of his school year.

"I can't believe the nerve of your ugly face," Remus grumbled, unbelievably after everything Harry had been through, still hating those Dursleys and their very nerve of being around Harry at all.

"Hardly," Lily muttered scathingly, "family is the last word I'd use."

"Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid are better family than that lot of slugs," James hissed.

Remus half considered it a bleeding miracle the man had even shown up to get Harry, considering the last time he'd only dropped him off as a cruel joke.

Sirius puzzled over something, thinking back to those awful first three chapters when he had felt like a murderous psychopath, and came to the suddenly odd conclusion that Vernon had never actually called Harry by his name. He had just called him boy at every opportunity. It seemed a miracle Harry even knew his name. Well the first chapter said Vernon never even learned Harry's name, maybe this was implying he never had. Sirius couldn't decide whether to laugh at the man's stupidity, or crack the man's head open and let all the dust out.

"You haven't heard the worst of it," Lily snapped of Hermione's innocent comment regarding Harry's  _Uncle._

"Why would you suddenly enjoy your holidays?" James asked, "because you know how to curse Dudley now?"

Harry just chuckled, that momentary memory of something bad happening gone in an instant to be replaced by what he had been feeling then.

"Oh," they all said brightly.

Lily frowned in concern at once, as she knew full well Petunia did know that rule, as she constantly reminded it of her whenever the slightest odd thing happened. Hopefully Harry wouldn't get into too much trouble because of it...

"Okay, that could be some potential for a lot of fun," James said, an evil grin spreading across his face.

"That's the end of this book," Remus said, glancing down at the last two words.

"Well I think it's time for dinner then," Lily said getting to her feet.

"I can help," Harry offered, following her into the kitchen

"No dear, I won't even let your father help, this is my thing. Go badger the boys with fifty questions I know you've been holding back."

Harry smiled at her, but did as he was told, walking back in to find them all laughing about some of the pranks they had pulled back in school, but there was a dark undertone to it. They seemed to be focusing on the ones that had disastrous, unplanned side effects. Several students seemed to have wound up in the hospital wing because of them.

Harry didn't want to think about the Dursley's when he was in such good company now, so he threw out the first question that came to mind. "So about that awful Quidditch match?" Harry began cautiously.

"Really?" James laughed. "You want to bring that up now? After everything we've just read?"

Harry merely shrugged, as far as he was concerned, he was alright. He didn't even feel any lingering trauma from this, which didn't bode well for his mental health, or this gut feeling that this wasn't his only deadly encounter. So he did what he had been watching his family do this whole time, deflect. "Yes," he said simply.

Sirius sighed and began, "Alright, yeah, you've earned it. So it was my fifth year right, and just before the game I was mad and distracted, which is probably why I didn't notice that my little brother, Regulus, was a Seeker for the Slytherin team, in his second year! Scrawny little git, I wouldn't have believed he could stay on a broom that was almost as big as him."

Shaking his head in remembrance, though with his mixed feelings about his brother he really couldn't decide if they were fond or not, he kept going, "anyways, so after I had basically ignored him for the past two years, I didn't see any reason to change that now, and the game went on as usual. That is until James went to make our fifth goal in a row, and one of the Slytherin beaters on the team lost it. I'll admit, I was distracted by watching Regulus, so I didn't see him, guy's name was Runcorn I think, big ol' sixth year. Yeah anyways, he knocked a Bludger right at James, who didn't have the Quaffle at the time mind you, and I did what any beater would and dove down to intercept."

Sirius paused again, frowning a bit and saying, "Don't rightly remember the rest of it, since that's the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital wing."

"Well we do," Remus said, looking pale as he glared at his friend, who clearly looked like he wanted the story to end there. Knowing that wasn't fair, he turned to Harry and finished, "Sirius was coming in from one direction to block the Bludger, and Regulus came in from the other, he must have seen the snitch or something. James tried to cut away, but having three things pelting him at once, it's no wonder he collided with one of them, which happened to be Regulus. All three boys managed to dodge impact however, but then Runcorn blew the second Bludger in their direction, and still disoriented from that three way near knock out, one of the three didn't have time to move out of the way..." he trailed off, wincing in disgust.

"It was awful," James agreed, "that thing hit Sirius in the back of the head, and he fell nearly forty feet to the ground. Everyone was distracted by calling a foul on both teams."

"I thought he was dead," Remus said, looking like he was going to pass out while looking his friend full in the face, "I didn't even realize he wasn't in the air any more, and when I saw him on the ground below-"

"But I'm not," Sirius said loudly, mimicking Harry earlier, but hey it had worked then right. "Spent a while in the hospital wing, and then I was as good as new."

Lily was looking genuinely upset for all of them, not having attended this game, she couldn't even imagine the trauma of seeing that now. She had been listening in from the kitchen, rather curious to hear that story herself.

Harry smiled around at them, as he decided to let the story go. His family clearly didn't like revisiting the incident. Yet this shared memory only reinforced what he knew for a fact back when he had first woken up and laid eyes on these people. They were all loving, caring, and his. Nothing would ever change that.

* * *

Thoughts on Philosopher's Stone:

The first book of this series does an excellent job right off the bat of showing you exactly what you're getting for the next seven, yes still seven I'll get to that latter, books. Whimsical fun mixed with a healthy dose of 'this is some real shit you need to learn to survive.' Magic is only introduced and teased until you hit chapter 6, and even then you only get the real life experience of what's been building up in 8. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is such a fascinating space I swear you could throw the most boring person in the world, like Vernon for instance, in there and you'd still find something interesting in that school. Harry being the focal point really makes you feel like you're there, because he's not much of an opinionated person. While traveling through him you don't get his impressions, you just see what he does and you gather your own opinion of it. The characters are introduced at an excellent pace, it quickly sets up their character, but then as the story progresses you realize there's more depth to them and you get to watch them interact and change throughout the year. Even subtle future plot points are laid out that you won't even notice until your second read through. Fourth favorite in the series, 10/10 for me, would recommend to anyone of any age.

*I couldn't find a way to work it into the book, but the reason Dumbledore flew instead of getting there quicker was because of Fudge. At the beginning of the book Hagrid mentioned how Dumbledore got messages from the man all the time, and Dumbledore was more than tired of having to arrive and help the man, so he was dragging his feet if you will to go up there. They don't even meet Fudge until the second book, and they don't see his true colors until the fifth, and by that time this really wouldn't have a reason to cross their mind. Found that interesting.


End file.
